Parity swap copy failing

[sMACk]

Hey all,

 

I had a disk become disabled so I bought a new drive to replace it.  New drive is larger than my largest/parity so I wanted to use the parity swap procedure.  I followed the steps here (https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#parity-swap), but when I try to execute step 14:

Quote

Put a check in the Yes I want to do this checkbox (older versions: Yes, I'm sure), and click the Copy button _Now patiently watch the copy progress, takes a long time (~20 hours for 4TB on a 3GHz Core 2 Duo). All of the contents of the old parity drive are being copied onto the new drive, then the remainder of the new parity drive will be zeroed.

 

The page reloads and nothing starts happening.  In the server log I see the following:

 

I would really like to use the parity swap if possible, but I guess I could do it piecemeal instead...

 

diags are attached

 

thank you for any help you can provide!

 

tower-diagnostics-20231004-0933.zip

[JorgeB]

Old parity doesn't have a partition, IIRC this can happen if it was added with a new config and then a parity check was done instead of a parity sync.

 

You can clone parity with dd but then would need to manually force disable the disk to rebuild, also a parity check will be needed after the rebuild to make sure rest of parity past the original disk size is in sync, while possible it would be easier if you just find a new disk of the same size of the old one, then replace parity after.

[JorgeB]

Other option would be to create a partition for current parity, but not sure if that would affect parity, most likely not, but no easy way for me to test.

[sMACk]

4 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Old parity doesn't have a partition, IIRC this can happen if it was added with a new config and then a parity check was done instead of a parity sync.

this sounds very plausible... I had a situation I mishandled previously and definitely could have done that.

 

4 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Other option would be to create a partition for current parity, but not sure if that would affect parity, most likely not, but no easy way for me to test.

Would you be able to instruct me on how to do that?  I only have one free hard drive slot available which is currently occupied by the new big drive.

[sMACk]

NEVERMIND! Don't waste your time.  I appreciate your help.  I am going to be sensible and take the easy route!

[sMACk]

oh actually, how can I fix the partitionlessness of my parity drive?  By doing a parity sync after the data rebuild (for the same size drive i put in to replace the big drive I wanted to use for parity)?

[JorgeB]

After replacing the disabled disk you could just replace parity with the new larger disk, that would automatically create a partition, or unassign current parity, start array, stop array, reassign same disk to resync.

[sMACk]

ok, will do, thank you very much @JorgeB!

[Duncan9989]

Hoping this is in the correct place. I am having a parity swap issue as well. I have had a data disk failure, however the spare drive I had as backup Is bigger than my parity drive (ordered by mistake!) I have a dual parity setup, not sure if that makes any difference in this situation. So I found a guide that said select the new drive in the parity slot that you would be replacing (so I just picked the oldest of the two parity drives) I then put the old parity drive in the failed data drive slot. Unraid then gave me the option to do the Parity swap and copy the data over. It all started well, I had read/write speeds of 220 on both drives, so I left them to it. I checked back half an hour later and 0 read/write speeds on both drives, but an average of 35% cpu usage, so it looked like something was going on. The progress % was at 2%. I decided to just leave it and check again this morning. Much to my frustration still at 2%, same cpu usage, same 0 read/write speeds. 

 

I have attached my diagnostic file from when I first noticed the 0 read/writes. I should also note that I have already tried things like changing Sata cables, I made sure that these two particular drives are connected directly to the MB rather than an expansion card. I have however ordered a new expansion card which has arrived this morning, so I can connect that up and try a new connection route hardware wise. I have also ordered an additional 8TB drive to match the other new drive so that the Parity can be scaled up once the swap and data rebuild is complete.

media_server-diagnostics-20231211-2259.zip

[JorgeB]

Dec 11 22:33:54 Media-Server kernel: ata6: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Dec 11 22:33:54 Media-Server kernel: ata6: hard resetting link
Dec 11 22:33:57 Media-Server kernel: ata6: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Dec 11 22:33:57 Media-Server kernel: ata6.00: revalidation failed (errno=-2)
Dec 11 22:34:02 Media-Server kernel: ata6: hard resetting link
Dec 11 22:34:02 Media-Server kernel: ata6: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Dec 11 22:34:02 Media-Server kernel: ata6.00: revalidation failed (errno=-2)
Dec 11 22:34:02 Media-Server kernel: ata6.00: disable device
Dec 11 22:34:03 Media-Server kernel: ata6: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)

 

New parity disk dropped offline, check/replace cables and try again.