I have Unraid v6.12.15 installed. Recently, my dog did something near my server and unlatched one of the drives. This caused Unraid to show the drive wasn't available even after I closed the latch.

 

I rebooted the system and nothing changed. It gave me the option to format and then rebuild the drive so I did. That seemed to go well except now I'm missing random files that I assume were on that drive.

 

Does anyone know if there's a log or something that can show me the files that were deleted? I've also tried seeing what items from Plex were removed but had no luck figuring that out either.

Format is NEVER part of rebuild. Format is a write operation. All writes in the parity array update parity. When you format a drive in the parity array, parity is updated to agree that the drive has been formatted. The result of rebuilding a formatted disk is a formatted disk.

 

Really wish you had asked for advice before doing anything.

14 minutes ago, Dinglestains said:

log or something that can show me the files that were deleted?

NO

 

Attach Diagnostics to your NEXT post in this thread.

 

 

How important was the data?

 

You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. Parity is not a substitute for backup. Plenty of ways to lose data besides a failed disk, including user error.

 

There may be some chance you can recover the data using something like UFS explorer if you remove the disk and don't do anything else to it.

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#creating-a-file-system-format

I don't think the files were that important. I store a bunch of files on the share and I don't really know what files went missing. My important files are backed up to cloud storage so I'm not worried about losing anything important.

 

I've attached the diagnostics from my server. I kind of assumed that the format shouldn't have occurred after I started noticing some files missing. It should be media that I can recover with time but I wish I knew what files were missing.

adamnas-diagnostics-20250313-2027.zip

1 hour ago, Dinglestains said:

log or something that can show me the files that were deleted?

Even if there were a log of deleted files (there isn't), the files were not deleted. The disk was formatted.

11 minutes ago, Dinglestains said:

important files are backed up to cloud storage

Good. You don't have to backup everything. I don't. You get to decide what is important.

 

You have a large number of disks. Do any have SMART ( 👎 ) warnings on the DASHBOARD page?

 

Looks like many are empty or nearly so. I always recommend no more disks than you need for capacity, with a little extra. Each additional disk is an additional point of failure.

 

Do you have Notifications setup to alert you by email or other agent as soon as a problem is detected?

 

Just for future knowledge, what should I have done in that situation? I don't know why it popped up the prompt to format the drive. I just thought it was getting it ready to rebuild. So weird that it takes it offline even after I inserted it back in within ~10 mins and rebooted the server.

 

I have 5 disks that have some type of SMART warnings. I have so many because I transferred them over from my previous Windows Storage Space server. I added 12 12TB drives when I built the new 36-bay server and switched from Windows Storage Spaces to Unraid.

 

Do you recommend I replace the drives with SMART warnings? I didn't ever take them seriously. Some of them may still be covered by a warranty and I might be able to get replacements from the manufacturer.

20 minutes ago, Dinglestains said:

I don't know why it popped up the prompt to format the drive

Format IS a possible option, but when you try it should have popped up a dialog to say that you should not be using Format unless you are happy to lose any data on the drive.     Typically one instead does a check filesystem to fix filesystem issues and then a rebuild.   If in doubt it is always best to ask for advice.

26 minutes ago, Dinglestains said:

Just for future knowledge

 

Thanks for the information. I wish I had read or asked for advice before formatting the drive. Nothing critical and just more annoying than anything to lose the files. I do wish Unraid made it simpler to bring a drive back online after something simple as it coming unplugged.

5 hours ago, Dinglestains said:

I do wish Unraid made it simpler to bring a drive back online after something simple as it coming unplugged.

As explained at that post I linked, when a write to it fails, it becomes out-of-sync. To get back in sync, you could rebuild parity, or you could rebuild the disk that is known to be out-of-sync.

 

On 3/14/2025 at 1:50 PM, Dinglestains said:

I have 5 disks that have some type of SMART warnings.

On 3/13/2025 at 8:47 PM, trurl said:

You have a large number of disks.

If you want us to take a look at the disks with SMART warnings, tell us which disks. Possibly they need to be taken very seriously.

The disks with SMART warnings are disks 11, 15, 18, 23, and 24. Are the numbers all you needed to see how bad the errors are?

3 hours ago, Dinglestains said:

Are the numbers all you needed to see how bad the errors are?

I can read the SMART reports in the diagnostics, I just didn't want to have to read all of them. I will make multiple posts as I analyze these.

 

Unraid monitors the RAW_VALUE of certain SMART attributes. These can be set in Settings - Disk Settings, or for specific drives in the settings for the drive. Better if you don't change these unless advised to do so.

 

Also see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes

Disk 11 - 6C4S (last 4 characters of SN) - no self-test run

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   100   100   010    -    25
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK   200   200   000    -    1

Reallocated_Sector_Ct -  A drive has spare sectors to replace bad sectors. As long as this isn't large and increasing it is OK. There are different opinions about how large is large. I think 25 is OK for now, but any at all is an indication that you should be alert for more.

 

 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count - This is incremented when the data the drive receives fails checksum. This is almost always a connection problem, possibly intermittent, and not the drive itself. Cables, connectors, maybe even controller.

 

The data is resent, and not all connection problems will result in CRC error since the drive will not receive any data to checksum.

 

As long as these are small and not increasing nothing to worry about. If they do begin to increase you need to investigate the connections. 

 

You can click on the SMART ( 👎 ) warning on the DASHBOARD page to acknowledge a warning and it will warn again if something increases.

 

Disk 15 - C3XN - no self-test

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   100   100   010    -    1

 

Disk 18 - PRGC - no self-test - nearly 6 years

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   089   089   000    -    11

 

Disk 23 - SVTN - no self-test

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   054   054   000    -    46

 

Disk 24 - 9149 - nearly 12 years old!

 

You should add attributes 1 and 200 for monitoring on WD disks.

 

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--CK   200   198   000    -    156

Not bad considering age.

Instead of replacing any of these, I still recommend

On 3/13/2025 at 8:47 PM, trurl said:

Looks like many are empty or nearly so. I always recommend no more disks than you need for capacity, with a little extra. Each additional disk is an additional point of failure.

 

Thanks for reviewing all of these for me. I think one of the drives in this server might be older than the 12 year old disk 24. I know there was a smaller (like 2 TB) drive I shucked a long time ago and I think its running still with no SMART warnings/errors.

 

What would you recommend I do with these drives then? I don't really have any use for them and that's why I just added them all to the Unraid server. I guess the Windows Storage Space I had used a lot more space for redundancy because I didn't have nearly this much capacity in Windows Storage Space. I did add 12 12TB disks when I bought the server though so that probably would've made a big difference.

36 minutes ago, Dinglestains said:

What would you recommend I do with these drives then?

How are you backing up your data?

I backup my important files to another PC and to cloud storage. This Unraid server is mainly to host media files that can be replaced. It would be a long painful process to replace them but I'm not willing to pay for ~40 TB of cloud storage or whatever I'm using now.

My backup server is mostly made from parts and disks left over as I continuously upgrade my main server. I don't run it often, just occasionally to backup my media from my main server.

 

All my important backups are offsite.

That’s a good idea. I thought about building a second server to back up everything at another family members house. Might be a project that I do later.

 

I just looked and I’m at 75TB used now so I’ve used more than I thought.