Hello, first time posting on here but I kind of need help and don't know what to do now.

I am very new to all of this and kind of figured everything out as I go, so I am not that knowledgeable.

So I have been having some UDMA CRC errors which is why I decided to move one of my disks from the array into a second parity disk. It didn't contain any data anyways. That did work but left me with disk 4 reporting as missing. Parity built without an issue though and everything still worked.

Disk 4 was sdc which is now parity 2. I took this screenshot today so I know the configuration.

Today I read how to make the unassigned disk 4 not show up that way anymore so I followed the instructions.

That included using the "New Config" tool and keeping the configuration the same which I did. I clicked on "parity is valid" and started it up.

Now this is what I am looking at.

Everything looks like a brand new system, no data, no shares, no containers, just fresh empty disks it seems like.

I immediatley stopped the array because I thought maybe the data is still on there and somehow accessible, I just don't know how.

I have a diagnostic file from a day or so before all of this and a new one I made in case that is needed.

Old:littleboi-diagnostics-20250528-1542.zip

New:littleboi-diagnostics-20250530-1147.zip

I know I am probably very dumb for doing this but if someone can help me out with this, it would really save me. I had important files on there and my last backup is ancient.

Thanks

Edited May 30, 20251 yr by myplaybox
formatting was bad

Doesn't look like you started the array after the New Config.

Also, parity will not be valid without disk4.

So, uncheck the Parity Valid box, and start the array.

I am a little confused right now because I did start it. I just saw that something went very wrong and stopped it again to have a chance at recovering this mess.

I do not have the parity valid box anymore. This is what I am looking at right now:

Thanks

Start the array and post new diagnostics

29 minutes ago, myplaybox said:

something went very wrong

Could you be a little more specific?

4 minutes ago, trurl said:

Start the array and post new diagnostics

Just a normal start or should I start in maintenance mode?

4 minutes ago, trurl said:

Could you be a little more specific?

Well when I started it, I saw that my shares, containers and even VMs are just gone. So I stopped the array because I didn't want to break my chance at getting everything back.

I have no idea if that helps with anything but I might have an older backup of my USB in the Unraid Connect cloud.

If you start in maintenance mode, no disks are mounted, so no shares or anything else is accessible.

Start in normal (not maintenance) mode and post new diagnostics.

littleboi-diagnostics-20250530-1506.zip

It started up and most shares are availible now, I probably started in maintenance mode before then. Now I feel stupid.

Parity 2 disk is shown as disabled, not quite sure what's up with that yet.

Thanks

Shutdown, check connections on parity2, both ends, SATA and power. Then start again and post new diagnostics.

Your "default shares" are on the array and configured to be on the array.

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/shares/user-shares/#default-shares

Best if these Docker/VM related shares have all files on cache or other pool with nothing on the array. so Docker/VM performance is not impacted by slower array reads and especially writes, and so array disks can spin down since these files are always open.

We can work on that after we get parity2 built.

9 minutes ago, trurl said:

Shutdown, check connections on parity2, both ends, SATA and power. Then start again and post new diagnostics.

I shut it down, reseated all the sata power and data cables and here are the diagnostics. It still shows the red X. But the drive seems to be working because I did a small SMART test to see if the system even recognizes it. That worked.littleboi-diagnostics-20250530-1527.zip

I must say that UDMA CRC errors are normal, I have those all the time. From my research it is usually a bad connection. The SATA cables I currently use are just whatever I could get in a pack of 6 off Amazon. I bought new ones that are supposed to be good ones. Those are on the way. For power I have them all on the same PSU, if the new SATA cables don't fix that someone said that I should use a second power supply. So the drives are split and not on the same cable. Not sure if that helps.

But these are really old and used drives. I bought them used and I am aware of that. They might fail in the future, that's why I decided to have 2 parity disks.

8 minutes ago, trurl said:

Your "default shares" are on the array and configured to be on the array.

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/shares/user-shares/#default-shares

Best if these Docker/VM related shares have all files on cache or other pool with nothing on the array. so Docker/VM performance is not impacted by slower array reads and especially writes, and so array disks can spin down since these files are always open.

We can work on that after we get parity2 built.

I know, this is very much not optimal. I do not have a cache pool, currently don't have the money to buy 2 SSDs either. The drives are usually always spinning due to that and qBittorrent doing whatever it does (seeding mostly).

Note also that having 2 parity disks will not help solve a CRC error type problem.

These are normally connection issues dues to the SATA or Power cabling and not issues with the drive itself. They will trigger retries and as long as the retry works the system continues as normal.

18 minutes ago, myplaybox said:

do not have a cache pool, currently don't have the money to buy 2 SSDs either

Note than even an HDD in a pool can improve performance. You might be better off going this route with the drive you have currently allocated as parity2.

2 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Note also that having 2 parity disks will not help solve a CRC error type problem.

I do know this, but it helps me sleep at night. Having to rebuild parity won't have me sweating bullets that way. I am trying to fix these for good, waiting for the new (supposedly) good SATA cables to arrive. I don't think it should be a power issue since I have a 600 W Be Quiet power supply and the entire system usually never consumes more than 60 W. Will have to see how the new cables do once they arrive.

6 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Note than even an HDD in a pool can improve performance. You might be better off going this route with the drive you have currently allocated as parity2.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but pool devices are protected with RAID1 right? How does parity work with just one HDD as a pool device?

1 minute ago, myplaybox said:

Please correct me if I'm wrong but pool devices are protected with RAID1 right? How does parity work with just one HDD as a pool device?

A single dtive pool is not protected, but if using for docker or VMs to improve performance you can use the appdata or VM backup plugins to make periodic scheduled backups to the array so that even if the pool fails you can revert to the previous backup position.

Do any disks show SMART warning on the DASHBOARD page?

1 minute ago, itimpi said:

A single dtive pool is not protected, but if using for docker or VMs to improve performance you can use the appdata or VM backup plugins to make periodic scheduled backups to the array so that even if the pool fails you can revert to the previous backup position.

Interesting, I might consider that then. I have a spare SSD laying around but it's small. I just thought it was not worth it having important data like that unprotected. How would that work? With setting up the mover?

Also I have my VM on a SSD connected with a USB adapter. I just use this plugin, unassigned devices that lets me do this outside of my array.

7 minutes ago, trurl said:

Do any disks show SMART warning on the DASHBOARD page?

Yes, parity 2 shows the UDMA CRC errors that are common.

After clicking on attributes for that disk:

I also ran a short SMART test for that drive but I can do a long one too if that helps. littleboi-smart-20250530-1548.zip

Edited May 30, 20251 yr by myplaybox
forgot to attach smart test results

1 hour ago, myplaybox said:

I just thought it was not worth it having important data like that unprotected. How would that work? With setting up the mover?

Not Mover. There is the appdata backup plugin designed for exactly this purpose. How big are the 'appdata' and 'system' shares? These are the ones that you want on a pool for best docker performance so is the SSD you have big enough?

3 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Not Mover. There is the appdata backup plugin designed for exactly this purpose. How big are the 'appdata' and 'system' shares? These are the ones that you want on a pool for best docker performance so is the SSD you have big enough?

System and appdata combined are 23.7 GB and I have a 128 GB m.2 here. So it would totally fit without a problem. I also have a 256 GB one but that is currently used to run the VM from. If I copy the virtual disk from there I could use the 256 GB one. Since I would like to put some other files on the SSD pool as well. Everything I want won't fit until I have a bigger one but it's fine for now. I think.

If I tell a share to be saved on another disk or the pool will Unraid just move the files there?

Click on the SMART warning to Acknowledge, and it will warn again if it increases.

Do you want to keep a disk as parity2? If so, you need to rebuild it.

16 hours ago, myplaybox said:

If I tell a share to be saved on another disk or the pool will Unraid just move the files there?

Unraid never moves existing files to another drive automatically (unless the settings for the share are such that mover gets involved). Changing the location of a share setting basically applies to new files, not existing ones. Typically existing files need manually moving.

10 hours ago, trurl said:

Click on the SMART warning to Acknowledge, and it will warn again if it increases.

Do you want to keep a disk as parity2? If so, you need to rebuild it.

Yup, I acknowledged it. Now all drives show the green thumb up again.

I do want to keep the second parity disk, even if it might not be the fastest thing to do. I am using recycled drives so that lets me sleep at night.

The disk still shows up as disabled, I tried reseating, restarting but it still shows as disabled. To make sure the system even recognizes the drive, I ran a small SMART test which completed without errors.

38 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Unraid never moves existing files to another drive automatically (unless the settings for the share are such that mover gets involved). Changing the location of a share setting basically applies to new files, not existing ones. Typically existing files need manually moving.

Got it, thanks. Always wondered how that works. I just moved all the system and appdata files over to the cache manually. I could have probably done it with the mover in hindsight, but that would have required to set the shares up for secondary storage.

It seemed to have worked that way, thanks. I also adjusted the spindown timer for all drives to 30 minutes and set up appdata backup for doing weekly backups to the array.

Update: So the new SATA cables arrived. I threw out the old ones and put in the new (supposedly good ones).

Starting up, the system still shows parity 2 as disabled. To make sure the system even recognizes that drive, I did a short SMART test. It completed without errors. littleboi-smart-20250604-1742.zip

I am not really sure where to go from here. Is this something with the config of my system? Is the drive just toast?

Edit: I found comment on a 3 year old Reddit thread that fixed it. Guess I was just dumb not thinking of this. Rebuilding parity now.

The comment:

Stop the array, unassign the disk, start the array in maintenance mode, stop it again, reassign the drive to the same slot. The idea is to start the array temporarily with the drive “missing” so it changes from “disabled” to “emulated” status, then to stop it and “replace” the drive to get it back to “active” status.

Thanks for all the help. You have been amazing.

Edited June 4, 20251 yr by myplaybox
found a solution