Hi Community,

I am a new Unraid user and I’m encountering a persistent issue with my Disk 1 being disabled immediately after attempting to format it. I would appreciate any insight into whether this is a hardware limitation of my enclosure or a software configuration issue.

My Setup:

• Hardware: Aoostar WTR MAX Pro

• OS: Unraid 7.2.3 (Free Tier).

• Drives: * Parity: 1x WD Red Plus 8 TB (WDC_WD80EFPX-68C4ZN0).

• Disk 1: 1x WD Red Plus 8 TB (WDC_WD80EFPX-68C4ZN0).

• Cache: 2x NVMe SSDs (Lexar 1TB & 512GB).

The Problem:

1. Initial Parity-Sync completed 100% successfully.

2. When I clicked "Format" to create the XFS file system on Disk 1, the operation failed instantly.

3. Disk 1 was immediately marked as "Disabled" (Red X), reporting 64 write errors.

4. SMART attributes for Disk 1 show [199] UDMA_CRC_Error_Count value of 28.

5. Interestingly, the blue activity LED for Slot 1 on the Aoostar chassis remains off/static, even during heavy operations, while Slot 2 (Parity) blinks normally.

What I have tested so far:

• Terminal Test: I ran dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=1M count=2000 iflag=direct which completed successfully at ~226 MB/s with no new CRC errors.

• Slot Swap: Swapping drives between slots showed that the issue (and the lack of LED activity) follows the slot/logic, not necessarily the physical drive itself.

• Current State: I am currently performing a Data-Rebuild after re-enabling Disk 1. As of now, it is at 68% progress with a speed of 221 MB/s and 0 Errors reported in the Unraid GUI.

Question:

Why does a sequential Data-Rebuild (writing terabytes of data) work perfectly fine, but a simple Format (writing XFS metadata) triggers a Disk Disabled state? Could this be an issue with the SATA controller/backplane in the Aoostar WTR MAX under specific I/O bursts, or is there a known sensitivity in Unraid 7.2.3 regarding CRC errors during formatting?

Please post the diagnostics

This is the file for now

Already i have more then 98% of rebuild od hdd with 0 error

nas-diagnostics-20260128-1114.zip

Diags are after rebooting, so we can't see the errors, but if the issue follows the slot, that could be the issue, CRC UDMA errors are typically a bad SATA cable, but since I assume no cables, it could be a bad slot.

Job is done. I don t see any option to format the hdd… i don t know why…

Please help me with this…

nas-diagnostics-20260128-1233.zip

You're right that there are no cables there. However, I was doing the reconstruction of the disks for the second time. It went through 13h processes again without a problem on the same slots. 0 errors so are you sure it's the hardware's fault? I don't know how to make this format now. Please help me. My hands drop on this topic. It should be simple and it's not...

19 minutes ago, gavelek said:

Job is done. I don t see any option to format the hdd… i don t know why…

According to the diagnostics disk1 is formatted and mounted. You only get the Format button if Unraid thinks there is an unformatted drive. What makes you think it now needs formatting? Your screenshot is cut off on the right so cannot see what shows there.

Disk is already formatted; use it normally and if any more errors occur, grab the diags before rebooting.

By creating the system base and installing two new disks, I wanted to make a 1:1 protection so that in the event of a HDD failure, there would still be an image to recover. So out of two 8+8 disks, only one 8 has a real surface area. I'm sorry but I don't know what it's called. I deal with programming in Python and the unraid system is new to me. It shows a further screenshot... I don't know if I understand correctly, but my parity doesn't have FS markings. I'm afraid that both disks are not connected to each other. And this is the main problem. If I misunderstand something, please explain it to me. On those screenshots disc is not on green light because they are sleeping after 30min

40 minutes ago, gavelek said:

By creating the system base and installing two new disks, I wanted to make a 1:1 protection so that in the event of a HDD failure, there would still be an image to recover. So out of two 8+8 disks, only one 8 has a real surface area. I'm sorry but I don't know what it's called. I deal with programming in Python and the unraid system is new to me. It shows a further screenshot... I don't know if I understand correctly, but my parity doesn't have FS markings. I'm afraid that both disks are not connected to each other. And this is the main problem. If I misunderstand something, please explain it to me. On those screenshots disc is not on green light because they are sleeping after 30min

Parity does not have a filesystem, that is normal and expected. If either of those 8TB drives dies you will be able to replace the failed disk with another 8TB drive and rebuild it either from the parity information OR the data disk. Parity1 works by XOR'ing the bits of all the "array disks" which you only have the one so far. When unraid does the calculation, and it knows there should a 1 bit but there is only a 0 bit, unraid can assume the missing bit is a 1 and "emulate" it. If the Disk1 dies or goes missing, unraid will emulate the missing disk as if it's still there, you can use the emulated disk as a real disk until you replace the physical disk.

The issue you and everyone else can run into with parity is that if the information on the data disk is bad, the parity rebuild will also be bad, with that said parity is not backup. It will only help you in the event of a drive loss. It cannot fix corruption or accidental file deletion.

Your "Cache" pool works a little differently. These two drives appear to be configured in a MIRROR, this is similar but different to a parity system. The data on both of these disks is IDENTICAL and each disk has it's own filesystem. If either of these drives dies, the other disk can take over as if it was independent all along, and you can simply replace the bad disk and unraid will make a new MIRROR from the good disk.

The cool thing about a mirror is that since there are two identical copies of data, the filesystem can self-heal if it detects that one of the copies no longer matches the other known good copy via checksums and other things.

Rest assured you are doing things the proper way it appears and you have drive failure redundancy. You still should make backups of your important data as these can be lost in other ways besides a disk dying.

Edited January 28Jan 28 by MowMdown

Thank you so much for your previous help and for analyzing my diagnostics. I just wanted to do one final check with you to be 100% sure before I start loading my data onto the server.

Current status of my Unraid (7.2.3):

• Array: 1x Parity (8TB WD) and 1x Disk 1 (8TB WD).

• Pool: 2x Samsung 990 PRO 1TB in a Mirror.

• Status: Both array disks currently show grey dots (standby/spun down), which I believe is normal.

• Mounting: Disk 1 is now showing its full capacity (8TB) and the "Unmountable" error has disappeared.

Based on your experience, does this look like a healthy, "ready-to-go" production setup? Is there anything else I should check in the settings (like Docker or VM paths) to make sure they use the Cache pool correctly?

Thank you once again for your time and expertise!

5 minutes ago, gavelek said:

Is there anything else I should check in the settings (like Docker or VM paths) to make sure they use the Cache pool correctly?

Attach Diagnostics ZIP to your NEXT post in this thread.

13 minutes ago, trurl said:

Attach Diagnostics ZIP to your NEXT post in this thread.

This is the file

nas-diagnostics-20260128-1456.zip

Docker/VM paths look OK, though I note that system share is using cache pool whereas appdata is using ssd-main pool. Nothing wrong with that if that's what you want to do. Probably can't cause any issue with system even if you fill up cache since system files will already be allocated.

Each of your user shares looks like it is using a calculated Minimum Free setting, and those should be OK as is. But if you want to reconsider those:

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/using-unraid-to/manage-storage/shares/#minimum-free-space

Neither of your pools has a Minimum Free setting. You should fix that.

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/using-unraid-to/manage-storage/cache-pools/#minimum-free-space-for-a-cache-pool

So in your opinion, I currently have the disks paired correctly... thank you. I will definitely change the settings you mention for security, come on, the scripts are light. I'm not posting them yet, but they will eventually be there. I will finish the immich configuration, then paperless along with AI and LLM is in the plan. Automatic backup of home devices... there are a lot of plans so I hope that everything will be grasped correctly... I thought that the 7.2.3 system has the ability to boot from M.2 and so I wanted to configure it as well, but I don't see it anywhere at the moment, which is a pity... if you have any other suggestions regarding my approach to the subject, feel free to write. I am open to suggestions, especially of people who are more experienced. At the same time, I thank everyone for their commitment.

1 hour ago, gavelek said:

I thought that the 7.2.3 system has the ability to boot from M.2

This is expected to be a 7.3 feature.