jbuszkie Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Then try the -t option... or whatever the syntax is... I believe writing the pre-clear signature is the last thing it does. Quote Link to comment
meep Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Then try the -t option... or whatever the syntax is... I believe writing the pre-clear signature is the last thing it does. Thanks all. Tried this and it reports not pre cleared so looks like I need to start over. Peter Quote Link to comment
jbuszkie Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 I would suggest using "screen" when ever using preclear... I can't tell you how many times I've run preclear in a telnet window only to accidentally close it! Jim Quote Link to comment
Superorb Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 I would suggest using "screen" when ever using preclear... I can't tell you how many times I've run preclear in a telnet window only to accidentally close it! Jim +1. Look at This Tutorial for info on Screen and preclearing with it. Quote Link to comment
itimpi Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 There are options to that can be passed to the pre-clear script to just run parts of the pre-clear proess if you know roughly where it got to that can be used to save time. However running from the tart will not do any damage so it might be the easiest thing to do. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Any way to check if a disk has been successfully precleared? I've been running pre clear on a new 4TB drive in a backup server (free licence). The pre clear script was instantiated from another machine on the network. When I check this morning at 6.30 AM, it was 8% through the final step. Power failed sometime in the afternoon to the machine running the script but the server was unaffected. I therefore can't see if the pre clear process completed. Is there a way to check if the drive has been successfully pre-cleared? Thanks Peter yes, you can type: preclear_disk.sh -t /dev/sdX also, when complete the prclear reports are saved in the /boot/preclear_reports directory however... Unless you were running the script under "screen", it stopped as soon as the connection via telnet dropped. Quote Link to comment
meep Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Thanks again, all Re-ran this on the physical machines console. My, the last checking step takes a while! Peter Quote Link to comment
johnieutah Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 So it's been a long time since I've had to preclear a drive. Thursday I purchased a 3TB WD Red, can't believe how cheap they've gotten. I'm just running through the process now. Is there still a results page to which we can post for analysis?? Also, I would like to use this 3TB drive in place of a WD20EARS drive, which is jumpered. Does this mean I will need to be careful when configuring the Red drive? When repositioning the EARS drive in the array (I will move it to be a normal data drive) I assume I should keep the drive with the current settings sector-63 aligned I believe? Many thanks guys. Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 So it's been a long time since I've had to preclear a drive. Thursday I purchased a 3TB WD Red, can't believe how cheap they've gotten. I'm just running through the process now. Is there still a results page to which we can post for analysis?? Also, I would like to use this 3TB drive in place of a WD20EARS drive, which is jumpered. Does this mean I will need to be careful when configuring the Red drive? When repositioning the EARS drive in the array (I will move it to be a normal data drive) I assume I should keep the drive with the current settings sector-63 aligned I believe? Many thanks guys. No, the partitioning of a drive is unrelated to the starting sector of the partition. (ie., unRAID takes care of that) It is a good idea to check smart reports, run a parity check, then rerun the smart reports, and make sure there are not drive anomolies before beginning the drive replacement process. You should preclear the disk first to give it a good burnin. However, the preclear signature is not needed or helpful for a drive reconstruction. But I will point out that replacing a perfectly good 2T drive with a 3T drive is not very economical. There are 4T, 5T and even 6T drives that would probably be cheaper per T than spending the cost of a 3T drive to net an increase of only 1T in array size. Quote Link to comment
jjdunkel Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. Quote Link to comment
switchman Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. Yes Quote Link to comment
jjdunkel Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Thanks for getting back to me so quickly Quote Link to comment
JonathanM Posted June 20, 2014 Share Posted June 20, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array?As long as the drive size and configuration aren't manipulated by System A or B, then yes. Some motherboards do bad things to drives by setting a HPA which subtracts from the size of the drive. Also, some USB drive adapters change the geometry of the drive. You should be able to check the preclear signature on the target system and tell right away if the drive is properly precleared for that system. Quote Link to comment
Frank1940 Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. Absolutely!!! I have done it three of four times without any problems. Quote Link to comment
BobPhoenix Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. That's the only way I've done mine. Well almost - only - anyway. 80+ drives and counting now. Quote Link to comment
itimpi Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. Yes. There is nothing on a pre-cleared disk that ties it to a particular system. I have heard of people having a separate system specifically targeted at allowing them to run pre-clears on disks without disturbing the system running the production servers. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 Can you preclear on unraid system A, then move the drive to unraid system B and add it to the array? I tried searching but didn't find anything so I apologize in advance if it exists somewhere already. Thanks. yes, you can. Quote Link to comment
jbartlett Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 I took a 4 TB drive out of the array for a couple days to use it for other purposes. Before re-adding it to the array, I ran the preclear script against it without pre-post reads, just zero out the drive. When I added it to the array, UNRAID didn't recognize the drive as being precleared and proceeded to do it again. Quote Link to comment
bkastner Posted June 26, 2014 Share Posted June 26, 2014 I took a 4 TB drive out of the array for a couple days to use it for other purposes. Before re-adding it to the array, I ran the preclear script against it without pre-post reads, just zero out the drive. When I added it to the array, UNRAID didn't recognize the drive as being precleared and proceeded to do it again. I thought it was the post read that marks the drive precleared for UnRAID as it does the validation. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 27, 2014 Share Posted June 27, 2014 I took a 4 TB drive out of the array for a couple days to use it for other purposes. Before re-adding it to the array, I ran the preclear script against it without pre-post reads, just zero out the drive. When I added it to the array, UNRAID didn't recognize the drive as being precleared and proceeded to do it again. I thought it was the post read that marks the drive precleared for UnRAID as it does the validation. No it is apparently the write step. I have use the option to skip pre and post many times on drives and it has always worked for me. I also do most of my preclears on my preclear station and not on my servers. But I would let Joe respond to this question for the correct answer. What version of the preclear script are you using? type preclear_disk.sh -v to see the version. What versions are the two unRAID servers? Before assigning the drive to the array, but after physically moving it to the target server, did you verify the preclear signature with preclear_disk.sh -t /dev/sdX ?? (and you are correct, writing the pre-clear signature is the last step after writing zeros to the drive, but before the post-read phase) Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Sorry, you'll have to go to him for guidance. I have no idea what he does with his changes. Joe L. Quote Link to comment
BobPhoenix Posted June 28, 2014 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Since I am apparently confusing the issue here I have deleted (or will shortly) my posts on the issue. Quote Link to comment
2stroke Posted July 5, 2014 Share Posted July 5, 2014 Just doing my 3t green and its coming up as 63 and there's no jumper on the thing? Is this safe to add it to the array or not. This was done using the newest preclear script on another machine thats in enhanced ide sata. It was out of a windows machine off a raid 1 before hand and it shows as sector 63. Whats the deal with the sector thing anyhow? edit its an fdisk issue god dammit atleaset i can stop the things and start again http://linuxconfig.org/linux-wd-ears-advanced-format?zjixallipatw=ytxcavjlt The preformance hit isnt that bad on riser anyhow ext3 is totaly crap though. 2.1. Partition table for WD EARS hard drive starting with sector 63 # fdisk -lu /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x10bd10bc Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 63 20971583 10485760+ 83 Linux ext2: 114 MB/s ext3: 47 MB/s ext4: 92 MB/s reiserfs: 87 MB/s vfat: 58 MB/s 2.2. Partition table for WD EARS hard drive starting with sector 64: # fdisk -lu /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x10bd10bc Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 64 16777280 8388608+ 83 Linux ext2: 126 MB/s ext3: 87 MB/s ext4: 106 MB/s raiserfs: 101 MB/s vfat: 58 MB/s It appears that ext3 file system is most crippled when disk's partition is not aligned and starts on sector 63. This test may not be the most effective benchmark as there are many more variables to be filled into the formula, however it give us some picture of what is going on. I could see the difference even on greater scale when installing back | track Linux on WD EARS drive formatted with ext3 partition starting on sector 63 ( 34 minutes ) and 64 ( 8 minutes ). Quote Link to comment
FreeMan Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Love the script, thanks for writing it! I've used it on every disk in my machine (9 data, 1 parity, 1 cache) Currently preclearing my first 4TB drive, and it's actually zipping along quite nicely. 18 hours and is on post-read (currently ~150 MB/s) of cycle 1. Just a thought for future revisions: Instead of (or in addition to) saying "DONE" next to a step when it's completed, could you put the elapsed time that step took? Or, alternatively, just the elapsed time from start would be fine - I can do the math if that's easier for the script. thanks again, JoeL! FreeMan Edit: Also, anything in version 1.14* that might keep all drives in the array spinning? I don't recall having seen this behavior in the past, but I can't identify anything else going on 'round here that would be keeping every drive busy. * Yes, I discovered there is now a 1.15, but I'm not running a 64-bit OS yet, so it looks like 1.14 will do for this run. I'll update as soon as it's finished. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Edit: Also, anything in version 1.14* that might keep all drives in the array spinning? I don't recall having seen this behavior in the past, but I can't identify anything else going on 'round here that would be keeping every drive busy. The writing to a drive will use most of your free memory in the disk buffer cache, displacing anything previously cached. Any other activity on the server will therefore need to spin up the physical disks to read their contents. It could therefore be anything, even a PC on your lan attempting to update its directory listings. (don't sweat it) Joe L. Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.