April 26, 20242 yr Community Expert I've been copying data from USB drives (mostly 14 TBs) to the server then shucking and installing them one by one. I had two older 4 TB drives that I wanted to install while this was going on. The first 4 TB went through preclear with no problem and I installed it in the array. The second 4 TB took much, much longer to preclear, stopped the operation and tried to add it to the array as 'disk 4' to see what's up, but it appeared to be a bad drive so I took it back out of the array. Later when another 14 TB was copied off and passed preclear I wanted to add it to the array. Since I was adding it to the spot (disk 4) where the bad 4 TB drive was, I got parity error and had to wait to rebuild parity, even though no data was copied to the old 4 TB. I let the rebuild run for the past day or so, it is now completed. Now I come back to the system and see that the 14 TB is still listed as having 'auto' for the FS and is still unmountable. #1) what steps do I do to add my 14 TB drive so i don't end up having to run a parity rebuild again? #2) FYI, Once it's added, I will be copying data from the first 4 TB drive to the others, plan on using SpaceinvaderOne's YouTube video on 'shrinking an array' doing step 2 (copy off of the drive with unbalanced app while maintaining parity), and using the notes in the first comment to manually modify the script. #3) should I keep the historical drives in the list on the GUI main page? Any reason to keep them there, aside form knowing old drive serial numbers? Thanks in advance!
April 26, 20242 yr Community Expert You need to format the 14TB drive to create an empty file system on it and make it ready for use. This is always required when adding a drive to a new slot in the array. Since we do not know what state the parity is in from your previous attempt to add disk4 I would strongly recommend now running a correcting parity check to make sure that parity is in sync with your array drives. You can always remove Historical Devices from the UD section. They are kept there so that any settings you applied to the drive last time it was used will still be set. Removing them means that if is then attached again you get the default UD settings for the drive.
April 26, 20242 yr Author Community Expert 45 minutes ago, itimpi said: You need to format the 14TB drive to create an empty file system on it and make it ready for use. I didn't notice the format option to format after preclearing this 14 TB (with 0 errors), I may have missed it, but recall only seeing the option to 'preclear' it again. I will triple check format options in the future, though I thought it formats the drive when it adds it to the array? I only recall formatting the first drive. Again, I may have missed it, especially since I am going about a week or more between adding each next drive to the array. 45 minutes ago, itimpi said: Since we do not know what state the parity is in from your previous attempt to add disk4 I would strongly recommend now running a correcting parity check to make sure that parity is in sync with your array drives. Should I run the parity check before touching the 'unmountable' 14 TB drive, or take it out of the array first? I don't want to screw anything up. 55 minutes ago, itimpi said: You can always remove Historical Devices from the UD section. They are kept there so that any settings you applied to the drive last time it was used will still be set. Removing them means that if is then attached again you get the default UD settings for the drive. OK, thanks for clarifying 'Historical'. The only drive that is in the list and not installed is the 'bad' 4TB drive. If I add any 'good' drives and not use them, I'll save them in Historical in case I want to use them again later.
April 26, 20242 yr Community Expert 5 minutes ago, YaSo said: I thought it formats the drive when it adds it to the array? No - it always starts of as an unmountable because at that point it is NOT formatted. The button to format unmountable drives is next to the one to start the array. Formatting is a very fast operation that only takes a minute or so. Make sure that only drives you WANT to be formatted are listed there in case another drive is currently unmountable for some reason.
April 26, 20242 yr Author Community Expert Array is stopped, one drive is in unassigned devices, the one I want, sorry but how do I format this drive? edit: I know I am missing something obvious... Edited April 26, 20242 yr by YaSo
April 26, 20242 yr Community Expert Solution Unraid can only format array or pool derives, and only after the array is started, format button is next to the array stop button.
April 26, 20242 yr Author Community Expert Was too tired from overnight shifts and lack of sleep in the daytime, got it now, thank you so much for your help @JorgeB & @itimpi. I mistakenly thought the format was done automatically or before I started the array for some reason, not that i should format after asdding it to the array and re-starting the array. Added it back in, started the array, saw the format option and the YES checkbox (edit - I thought I posted this two days ago, sorry for the delayed thanks Edited April 28, 20242 yr by YaSo delay in posting
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