Convert from non IT HBA to IT HBA - PANIC

[ephigenie]

Hi, 

I have a fairly populated Unraid Server with approx 15drives so far. Those are distributed across 2 controllers. One of them is a legacy DELL Controller in NON-IT mode and the other one an updated IT mode SAS Controller. 

Now I have reached the point I need to add some additional disks via external DAE and want to add more controllers, but have not enough slots so I am forced to think about optimization of the current setup. 

My plan would be now to i.e. replace the existing controllers with this : SAS9305-24i LSI 9305-24i Logic Controller Card IT Mode 24-Port SAS 12Gb/s 

 

However - the naming is an issue of course. 
Now is there a "scan" feature available that would make Unraid recognize a disk ( its signature) although the name has changed ? 
Obviously that would only affect the disks connected as individual raid0 on the dell controller, the 7 disks on the IT mode controller would remain unchanged name wise and be recognized ( I assume ) . 

I am aware the whole idea and why its not recommended to use those raid controllers without the pass-through "IT" mode is for exactly this scenario (be independent of the controller) ... But such is life. Now I am searching for a solution. Anyone has a hint?

Edited April 2 by ephigenie

[Frank1940]

What I would be doing is trying to link those 'names' of the non-IT MODE controller assigned to the actual serial number of the disk itself.  (Depending on the controller, this could be simple or difficult...)  Once you have done this, you would replace the card(s) and assign the disks using the serial numbers to the proper disk slot using the "New Config" TOOL --- setting parity as being correct.  At this point, I hate to provide detailed instructions as I  have never had to do this.  It may well be in the Manual but if you can't find it or are confused,  @JorgeB has provided guidance in the past. 

 

Do you have single or duel parity?  With single parity, disk order is inconsequential and parity will be correct if all of the data disks are simply assigned as array data disks.  With dual parity, parity is wrong if the data disks are not assigned to the same identical disk slot. 

 

I am a bit paranoid so one thing I would do is to run a non-correcting parity check before I started.  Then I would run another parity check after I was finished.  (I prefer addressing one problem at a time!)

Edited January 16 by Frank1940

[JorgeB]

New config is enough if the names are the only thing that changed, but note that some RAID controllers create specific partition layouts, if that's the case the disks won't mount on a different controller.

[ephigenie]

soooo i got into the situation now ... that i have replaced the controller. 

But i cannot get them to mount into unraid as part of the Array. 

However i can mount separately individually without any issue... Any recommendations ? 
Below my old config with the perc710 controller (now i am using a 24i - 9306 or so LSI based controller ) 

 

Unfortunately now however - although the partitions look almost the same, it is saying "unknown partition layout" cannot mount. 

However on the command line i can mount them individually - so all my data is there. 

Now i would love to know what partition information / schema Unraid exactly is looking for - so i can change the disks partition layout. 

I mean start sectors are quite the same - just at the end seems there is a 512MB patch free that the other native unraid formatted disks dont have. 

All disks have UUID and actually show XFS as well here. 

 

Any ideas anyone ? 

I mean i have all my data still there ... ? 

[ephigenie]

Needless to say in the above screenshot you can still see 4 more drives having the DELL naming ... those are coming as well over ( still on the old controller ) . 

For some reason i think technically it should be absolutely do-able to get unraid to mount and recognize the disks again. 

I will deep dive a bit more into what kind of partition layout unraid is formatting the other disks. In order to manipulate this disks to undergo the same layout. 

[ephigenie]

 

If i mount i.e. my disk1 ( sdg1 ) to /mnt/disks1/disk1 manually :

 

 

The mount message is the same ( again rightfully seeing V5 Xfs etc ) ... 

This is what i see for those disks...

 

The parity drive (which works) with fdisk -l /dev/sdo 

root@bob:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdo
Disk /dev/sdo: 14.55 TiB, 16000900661248 bytes, 31251759104 sectors
Disk model: ST16000NM001G-2K
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 0013AD91-3326-4479-A772-A0AFE8D4BBCA

Device     Start         End     Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdo1     64 31251759070 31251759007 14.6T Linux filesystem

 

and a similar size but not working : 
 

root@bob:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdg
Disk /dev/sdg: 14.55 TiB, 16000900661248 bytes, 31251759104 sectors
Disk model: TOSHIBA MG08ACA1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: A1FEB878-5764-4167-91F8-AC9C8F88EC9C

Device     Start         End     Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdg1     64 31250710494 31250710431 14.6T Linux filesystem

 

cfdisk is showing the 512M at the end of the disk 

Now i am aware of course i can just reformat and then lose all my data and be done with that ... but that would be quiet the hassle. 

I also think i could in theory buy another 16TB drive, mount it into unassigned devices, format it - then mount one of my old drives - copy everything over than format the old drive and add it - but its a lengthy exercise ( with in total 8 drives ). Would be great if that can be shortened somehow. 

Update: I have ordered another Toshiba 16TB disk - but anyone can help please and explain the difference in the partition layout?

 

bob-diagnostics-20240403-0018.zip

Edited April 2 by ephigenie

[JorgeB]

12 hours ago, ephigenie said:

it is saying "unknown partition layout" cannot mount. 

This can usually be solved by rebuild the disks one at a time, but check that the emulated disk mounts before rebuilding on top.

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/84717-solved-moving-drives-from-non-hba-raid-card-to-hba/?do=findComment&comment=794399

 

[ephigenie]

Yeah ok - thats unfortunately not possible - since the cabling is via minisas 4i (Dell 620T - 8x3.5 case ) - so it's going to be 4 disks at a time. 
Exactly the scenario i have right now....  

 

Is there no reasonable explanation as to what exactly unraid is looking for in the partition layout ? 

Could not be more than a few bites set at the right point?

 

 

[JorgeB]

You can try recreating the standard Unraid partition layout, but cannot guarantee that will work, you can clone a disk first to test if you want:

 

sgdisk -o -a 8 -n 1:32K:0 /dev/sdX

 

[ephigenie]

On 4/3/2024 at 8:37 PM, JorgeB said:

You can try recreating the standard Unraid partition layout, but cannot guarantee that will work, you can clone a disk first to test if you want:

 

sgdisk -o -a 8 -n 1:32K:0 /dev/sdX

 

 

Thanks for the tip - but also did not work out. I think Unraid sets somewhere a magic byte in the GPT header. Tried to find it with sleuthkit already - but could not find it so far - i can only say that all gpt headers created from unraid look slightly different then the ones created outside. in 2 Bytes.  The other cylinder alignment etc pp are all the same. 

[ephigenie]

On 4/3/2024 at 8:37 PM, JorgeB said:

You can try recreating the standard Unraid partition layout, but cannot guarantee that will work, you can clone a disk first to test if you want:

 

sgdisk -o -a 8 -n 1:32K:0 /dev/sdX

 

 

Thanks for the tip - but also did not work out. I think Unraid sets somewhere a magic byte in the GPT header. Tried to find it with sleuthkit already - but could not find it so far - i can only say that all gpt headers created from unraid look slightly different then the ones created outside. in 2 Bytes.  The other cylinder alignment etc pp are all the same. 

Update: 

Tried again - copied the files over from one of the drives to a new drive. Now i am trying to format that drive and let it be recognized in unraid. Still it does not recognize the disk. 
 

 

[Frank1940]

2 hours ago, ephigenie said:

Tried again - copied the files over from one of the drives to a new drive. Now i am trying to format that drive and let it be recognized in unraid. Still it does not recognize the disk.

Back in the deepest darkest recesses of my mind, there is a memory of someone who had a similar problem.  His solution was found in Windows Control panel with the 'Disk Management' tool.  It can be found in Windows 11 Control Panel from the "Windows Tools'  then 'Computer Management'  and look for 'Storage'-'Disk management'.   Basically, you want to make the disk usable in Windows and Unraid can handle it from there.   (Those tools appear to be well hidden for a reason-- casual use can do a lot of damage very easily.)

 

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, ephigenie said:

Tried again - copied the files over from one of the drives to a new drive. Now i am trying to format that drive and let it be recognized in unraid. Still it does not recognize the disk. 

Do you mean it's not recognized after Unraid formats it? If yes post the diags after doing that.

[ephigenie]

On 4/5/2024 at 2:55 PM, Frank1940 said:

Back in the deepest darkest recesses of my mind, there is a memory of someone who had a similar problem.  His solution was found in Windows Control panel with the 'Disk Management' tool.  It can be found in Windows 11 Control Panel from the "Windows Tools'  then 'Computer Management'  and look for 'Storage'-'Disk management'.   Basically, you want to make the disk usable in Windows and Unraid can handle it from there.   (Those tools appear to be well hidden for a reason-- casual use can do a lot of damage very easily.)

Ah well - you mean to say i shall remove unraid and install a windows server to get the GPT partition table right in order for unraid to recognize it?  - that sounds funny

On 4/5/2024 at 2:59 PM, JorgeB said:

Do you mean it's not recognized after Unraid formats it? If yes post the diags after doing that.

 

No i mean the disks are already formatted with XFS and i can mount them manually inside unraid. Just the partition layout for some reasons doesn't seem to fit. That is the challenge. 

I have transferred files now to an unassigned standalone HDD from 2 disks ( 8TB & 16TB ) . After the transfer i did "sgdisk -o -a 8 -n 1:32K:0 /dev/sdX" on those disks and ran an xfs_repair /dev/sdX & reboot. Eventually i started as well the mkfs.xfs /dev/sdX just to get the error message ( partition already has a live XFS filesystem ). 

At some point after a reboot the partitions were recognized  and i could add them into the config. 
I am about to finish the transfer back for the 16TB disk so 2 out of 8 are fixed now. 
After the 16tb disk i will try a different approach. Copying these amounts of data around is taking weeks. 

[JorgeB]

2 hours ago, ephigenie said:

No i mean the disks are already formatted with XFS and i can mount them manually inside unraid. Just the partition layout for some reasons doesn't seem to fit. That is the challenge. 

If creating the standard partition layout doesn't help, the only other way I know how to fix it would be to rebuild each disk one at a time as already mentioned, alternatively, if you have a spare disk, you can format the new disk and use UD to copy the data from an old one, then repeat for the other disks.

[ephigenie]

Ok i have thank you - with your help its figured out now. 
Now for everyone who faced the same issue - just to document it : With Perc 710 controllers - whereas the single disk was configured as a virtual disk you need to do the following, assuming you have to change more than 1 disk in a row - because i.e. like in my case with a poweredge T620 the drive cage is 2 x 4 drives connected via a 4i cable each so no way to take them separate. 
 

1) make a screenshot of your (old) config & names then shutdown 

2) change your cabling ( i.e. 4 disks at once ) 

3) start unraid up again - it will complain too many disks are missing ... 

4) make sure you see all your 4 disks but with (partition not readable / supported ) 

5) go to tools -> new config 

6) run sgdisk -o -a 8 -n 1:32K:0 /dev/sdX ( as in X is each disk so 4 times ) for those 4 disks that are not readable

7) run xfs_repair /dev/sdX1 afterwards
try to start the array ( with the new config )
9) it should be fine now, if not reboot once. 
10) repeat step 1-9 with the 2nd batch of disks 

11) good luck. This has been tested with PERC / DELL raid controllers