Im sure this is a dumb question but I can't figure it out. starting  new build and didn't format one of my old drives before tossing it in the server.  Was going through preclear but I can't format/preclear the Dev1.  I know I can just yank and format with my windows box but want to know how to do this. Thanks.

 

1 hour ago, ConradA said:

can't format/preclear

Which do you want to do? If you format a drive it isn't clear. And preclear is mostly just for testing a disk, I see no reason to preclear a drive that has been working well. Does it have any SMART warnings on the Dashboard page?

 

Why do you want to do either? And why NTFS?

 

What are your plans for the drive?

ah yes thank you. still learning and mixing up my terminology.  I just want to format the drive.  The data is from a previous windows OS install that I no longer want.  I now understand that preclear is just a disk test.  I think the disk is going to be used as one of the cache drives.   I might be getting ahead of myself but do I want this formatted before moving forward. Thanks

2 minutes ago, ConradA said:

I think the disk is going to be used as one of the cache drives.

Is it an SSD?

 

Whether you use it as an array disk or a cache disk, you must let Unraid format it after you assign it.

Many people have a vague and somewhat incorrect idea of what format does. The main thing to remember is NEVER format a disk that has data on it you wish to keep.

 

Seems obvious now, but later, when you have an unmountable disk, or need to rebuild a disk, it might not seem so obvious. NEVER format a disk that has data on it you wish to keep. Formatting an unmountable disk means we can't repair its filesystem, so its data is gone. Formatting a disk during rebuild means you will be rebuilding a formatted disk, so its data is gone.

 

Please don't hesitate to ask for advice.

ok i think ive got this. After I assign and start the array the disk will be formatted as a matter of course. No need to format it before that. Is this correct?   It is an SSD.  I was confused because the other SSDs were showing an option to format while this one was showing an option to mount. All three are SSD's. (I also have 3 HDD's). Thanks!

If Unassigned Devices sees a mountable filesystem on a disk, it will offer to mount it. If not, it will offer to format it so it has a mountable filesystem. Unassigned Devices will mount disks of various filesystems, including NTFS, which is a Windows format.

 

Disks in the Unraid array or pools must be formatted XFS, btrfs, ReiserFS (soon to be deprecated and unsupported so don't use). ZFS is planned for a future release.

 

Default for the array is XFS. Multidisk pools must be btrfs.

 

After you add a data disk to the array you will have to tell Unraid to format it. Same for first disk in pool. Parity has no filesystem so it doesn't get formatted.

 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

NEVER format a disk that has data on it you wish to keep.

 

2 hours ago, ConradA said:

still learning

Have you had a look at the documentation yet? Click on the link at the bottom of this page. Overview is a good place to start and I recommend reading all of it. The other sections you can look at later as needed.