So I messed something up trying to move data off a failing drive and remove the drive from my array huh?

[Ace319]

[JorgeB]

If you removed an array drive parity should be resynced instead, a parity check will be much slower due to all the errors.

[Ace319]

47 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

If you removed an array drive parity should be resynced instead, a parity check will be much slower due to all the errors.

I thought I did - I followed all the steps on the walkthrough and spaceinvaderone's video (which are the same steps).

 

This is my monthly parity check.  I didnt run it manually after I shrunk my array.

[JonathanM]

Maybe you accidentally checked "Parity is valid" after you did the new config?

[Ace319]

7 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Maybe you accidentally checked "Parity is valid" after you did the new config?

I did method below and you are supposed to check the parity is valid box?

 

The "Clear Drive Then Remove Drive" Method

14. Click the check box for Parity is already valid, make sure it is checked!

[JonathanM]

Apparently the drive to be removed was not fully cleared.

 

Generally writing all zeroes to a drive takes many many hours, even days sometimes. How long did that step take for you?

[Ace319]

7 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Apparently the drive to be removed was not fully cleared.

 

Generally writing all zeroes to a drive takes many many hours, even days sometimes. How long did that step take for you?

I used krusader and the built in file manager (found that this froze a few times).

 

Everything was clear off the drive (it was 3tb) But it took maybe 24hours.  

 

The drive in question had pending sectors and it was my slowest WD Green 5400 drive so I wanted to take it out anyway.

So I removed it and I'm currently doing a preclear on it rn but it is running SO SLOW. screenshot below.  I figure Im just going to remove it completely and us it for an extra- extra redundancy for pics/home vids.

 

 

[JonathanM]

11 minutes ago, Ace319 said:

Everything was clear off the drive

Deleting files doesn't clear the drive. The entire drive must have zeroes written to it, so when it is removed the parity is still valid. Preclear DOES write all zeroes, but you can't preclear a drive while it's in the array. There is a script that does clear the drive while it's in the array so you can remove it without recalculating parity, but the script doesn't work well for many people, it's very slow.

 

I think you need to stop the array, unassign the parity drive, start the array so it forgets it, stop the array, assign the parity drive so it will recalculate from scratch.

 

A clear drive in Unraid terms is all zeroes. A drive with all the files deleted, or formatted, even if it shows an empty filesystem still has a whole mess of ones and zeroes on it, some from the deleted files, some from the filesystem itself.

[JonathanM]

36 minutes ago, Ace319 said:

I did method below and you are supposed to check the parity is valid box?

 

The "Clear Drive Then Remove Drive" Method

14. Click the check box for Parity is already valid, make sure it is checked!

You forgot steps 7 and 8.

 

That is the legacy site anyway, here is the new document.

 

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#removing-data-disks

[Ace319]

5 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Deleting files doesn't clear the drive. The entire drive must have zeroes written to it, so when it is removed the parity is still valid. Preclear DOES write all zeroes, but you can't preclear a drive while it's in the array. There is a script that does clear the drive while it's in the array so you can remove it without recalculating parity, but the script doesn't work well for many people, it's very slow.

 

I think you need to stop the array, unassign the parity drive, start the array so it forgets it, stop the array, assign the parity drive so it will recalculate from scratch.

 

A clear drive in Unraid terms is all zeroes. A drive with all the files deleted, or formatted, even if it shows an empty filesystem still has a whole mess of ones and zeroes on it, some from the deleted files, some from the filesystem itself.

Yeah I used the script... The script finished like like 10 minutes. So youre saying that the script did nothing haha.

 

Understood. And yes the drive is removed and parity check is running/fixing. so everything should be good when it finishes

[JonathanM]

Just now, Ace319 said:

parity check is running

Are you sure you selected the box to "Write corrections to parity"?

[Ace319]

21 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Are you sure you selected the box to "Write corrections to parity"?

I followed the guide as well as the video before doing anything.  But Im sure I screwed up somewhere because all these corrections shouldnt be happening. 

 

But like you said it sounds like the user script didnt actually do anything for that drive before I removed it.

[JonathanM]

You need to run another check after this one completes to make sure there are zero parity errors.