Unraid 6.12.4 - Array Disks spinning up and down every few mins, despite Array being stopped. Troubleshooting suggestions ?

[ph_]

Hi, 

 

as the headline says... I am certainly not the first person to have this problem, but I also could not find a conclusive solution to the issue. I am not keen on downgrading, as this will probably create new issues with docker images I have upgraded since switching from 6.10.0 to this newer version.

 

So, array has been stopped, because I took out one of the parities. Hence there should be no reason whatsoever to spin up disks. I guess the problem was there before I took one of the parities out, I guess was less obvious then that something is going awry.

 

If someone could advise where to look in the diagonstics - I checked syslog and it does not say much more then what I already know:

....

Feb 20 12:44:13 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdb
Feb 20 12:44:25 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdc
Feb 20 12:59:03 Unton emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdb
Feb 20 12:59:15 Unton emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdc
Feb 20 13:00:13 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdb
Feb 20 13:00:25 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdc

....

What else can I check ? 

 

best!

unton-diagnostics-20240220-1630.zip

[SimonF]

8 minutes ago, pho said:

Hi, 

 

as the headline says... I am certainly not the first person to have this problem, but I also could not find a conclusive solution to the issue. I am not keen on downgrading, as this will probably create new issues with docker images I have upgraded since switching from 6.10.0 to this newer version.

 

So, array has been stopped, because I took out one of the parities. Hence there should be no reason whatsoever to spin up disks. I guess the problem was there before I took one of the parities out, I guess was less obvious then that something is going awry.

 

If someone could advise where to look in the diagonstics - I checked syslog and it does not say much more then what I already know:

....

Feb 20 12:44:13 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdb
Feb 20 12:44:25 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdc
Feb 20 12:59:03 Unton emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdb
Feb 20 12:59:15 Unton emhttpd: spinning down /dev/sdc
Feb 20 13:00:13 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdb
Feb 20 13:00:25 Unton emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdc

....

What else can I check ? 

 

best!

unton-diagnostics-20240220-1630.zip 119.5 kB · 0 downloads

I think when the array is stopped it will keep checking disks for available drives. Does it do the same if in safe mode with array started?

[ph_]

Hi Simon,

 

thx for the reply - alright, guess gonna give that safe mode a shot. 

While it might keep checking if disks are still there, why would it spin them up though, if the user has disabled the array ?

If this is a design decision...  it is a rather poor one.

 

Cheers 🙂

[ph_]

Update: I tried the Safe Mode with GUI. 

 

My settings: Spindown after 15 mins, Array is stopped as for one missing parity. 

 

Result: Disks stay spinning for 30mins, then at 31mins start spinning down, at 32 mins start spinning up again. 

 

Conclusion: Safe Mode does not make any difference.

 

As for my goal to add a new drive to the array and reactivate it - seems I have to endure having that array spin up and down every few mins while it takes 2 days to pre-clear my 10TB ironwolf disk. 

 

Any other suggestions ? If I decide to downgrade to 6.10 again - that probably would mean that my dockers stop working (as they have been upgraded in the meantime) or introduce other new problems ?

 

Possibly any changes to this strange behaviour in even newer versions of Unraid ? 

 

 

[Gothan]

Hi,

 

I am very interested in the solutions to implement or test to resolve the problem because for several days now I have had a problem that strongly resembles the one mentioned by pho. My disks are constantly spinning intensively for no reason, even when the array is stopped.
No read/write appears in the Unraid interface but I see and hear the disks working.

....

Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: Spinning up all drives...
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdd
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sde
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdb
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdf
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdc
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sda
Feb 14 16:45:30 NODE emhttpd: read SMART /dev/sdg

....
I am currently on vacation and I have exceptionally stopped my server while waiting to find a solution on the forum.
When the problem appeared, my server was in version 6.12.6 and upgrading to version 6.12.8 did not change the problem.

 

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me as I am far from being an expert on the subject.

 

 

node-diagnostics-20240214-1647.zip

[itimpi]

2 minutes ago, Gothan said:

My disks are constantly spinning intensively for no reason, even when the array is stopped.

I believe this is normal if the array is stopped.

[Gothan]

i've stopped the array to test if the problem was also occuring when the array is stopped.

I've installed Unraid some months ago and it was not working like this previously, especially since installing an SSD drive to manage the cache

 

In fact, my problem is not exactly the same as pho because my disks are running all the time from the beginning : no spin down configured in the system because i think it is better for the disks to stay awake all the time.

But since some days, there's a huge amount of disks access and i don't understand why.

I have 3 disks for the storage (6 To + 6 To + 12 To) + 1 parity disk (12 To) and 1 SSD disk for the cache (1 To).

Everything were working properly for months with some disks access per minute (the activity led was blinking time to time). Since some days from now, the disks access are really huge and i can hear and see this huge activity that i can't explain. (the activity led is stay on all the time)...

Edited February 25 by Gothan