two drives both with red Xs - Device disabled, contents emulated

[Yonder]

So I had purchased a new large drive with my intention of upgrading my second parity drive to 18TB so that I can start slowly swapping out aging array drives with much larger ones over time.   Before I had the chance to install the new drive to get it precleared and do a parity swap, one of my drives (Disk 3) flipped to a red X and is listed as "Device is disabled, contents emulated" seemingly without any inciting event causing that.   Whether or not that disk had actually failed, I powered down to install my intended new parity disk into my server on an available SATA connection, and start the long preclear process. 

 

When I powered back on I still had the red X on that same drive, as expected.  I figured that while the preclear was running I'd also do a short and maybe also an extended SMART self-test on the drive to see if it was actually failed... or whether it might have just gone weird and now needed to be rebuilt upon itself.  I had stopped my docker containers, and checked a few other things and then spotted spontaneously that a second drive (this time Disk 5) had also flipped to a red X, with the same apparent error.   Now I'm starting to get concerned.  With two disk parity, I should still be okay, but now I can't suffer another disk failure without losing data.  

 

Both drives passed the short SMART tests, and I've got them both running extended SMART tests now... they'll be a few more hours yet.  And the preclear operation for the new parity drive will probably take at least a few days given its size.    

 

Is there a way to be confident that the two drives would be okay if I try to rebuild onto both of them?   Or do I need I need to see the results of the extended SMART tests?  

If they seem to test okay, should I rebuild both at the same time or do them one at a time?  

 

I've attached my diagnostics data.  I'm looking at the instructions here:  https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Storage_Management#Replacing_failed.2Fdisabled_disk.28s.29  in the section "Rebuilding a drive onto itself".

 

Thanks.

 

 

tacounraid-diagnostics-20230403-0231.zip

[JorgeB]

Diags are after rebooting so we can't see what happened, but the disks look OK so most likely a power/connection problem, assuming the emulated disks are still mounting and contents look correct you can rebuild on top, suggest first replacing/swapping cables to rule them out.

[Yonder]

You think that replacing the cables is likely needed even after they've served for a couple of years with previous problems?  I did take them out, hit them with compressed air and re-seated them, but the behavior was the same.  I think I have some new spares around that I could swap to.  

 

Also, assuming that the extended SMART tests check out and the contents look fine in the emulated disks, then if I go to rebuild on top... any specific problem with doing that for both disks at once, or is it wiser to do them one at a time? 

[JorgeB]

If you don't want to replace cables swap them with different disks, that would still rule them out if it happens again, and you can rebuild both disks together.

[Jessam99]

I have had a similar issue with one of my Seagate 8TB drives after adding a raid 0 pool for downloading/seeding. I have changed the SATA cable from connected to my HBA card to a motherboard SATA port and I still have the same issue. I am new to Unraid so any help would be appreciated.

 

I've attached my diagnostics (which were taken after I restarted) and my extended smart test results.

box-diagnostics-20230403-2212.zipbox-smart-20230403-0850.zip

[Yonder]

Thanks for the advice, JorgeB.   I've replaced both of those cables, to be on the safe side.   

 

The rebuild process on both drives is now underway.  ~13 hrs to go, so fingers-crossed that all the other drives hold up while this operation completes.   Cheers!

[JorgeB]

11 hours ago, Jessam99 said:

I have had a similar issue

Disk was already disabled in the diags, so we can't see what happened, but the disk looks healthy.