unRaid server is extremely slow...


cnv

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My unRaid server overheated the other night big time. I had it running in the living room because I was adding new drives and had a guest over sleeping in the living room. He put a blanket over it because it was too loud and when I woke up it was very hot. The fan was blowing out hot air. I was unable to access the server through my computer and shut off the server. I waited an hour and rebooted it. It now runs extremely slow and can take an hour to just delete a few files totalling about 20 gigs. My 4th hard drive shows up but im unable to access it. Everything seems to work normally for only a little bit but then it lags out again. Is my hardware toast?

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My first concern would be data loss. I would power down the array until you have a disk to copy unrecoverable data from the array.  You need to do some triage to make sure that something nasty hasn't happened that makes keeping the computer running dangerous.  I'd save my data off as soon as possible. 

 

Once I had a backup, I'd want to know what the problem is. It could be a drive, motherbord, processor, PSU, memory, or a fan.  Check the troubleshooting link in my sig below for some help in that direction. Running smartctl, as Weebo suggests, is a good place to start.

Since this happened overnight, I'd think it likely that the drives were spun down. If so, that would make me think that the drives are okay. But at this point, everything is a possibility.

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Some handly smartctl check commands.

 

? = drive letter of drive you are checking.

 

Quick Health Check

 

root@Atlas:/mnt/disk2# smartctl -d ata -H /dev/sdc

smartctl version 5.38 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] Copyright © 2002-8 Bruce Allen

Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

 

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

 

If this fails, You will need to consider drive replacement as soon as possible.

 

 

smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sd? 

will dump the logs ( I would suggest saving them on your /boot flash. )

 

If there are warnings you should see something right away.

 

 

smartctl -t short-d ata /dev/sd?

 

will do a short test.

Here is mine after a long test

 

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%       234         -

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LOL Bill. My box has been driving me nuts since day one! I think a noob like myself should have steered clear from something like unRaid but I found no other storage solution that didn't cost an arm and a leg!

 

RobJ, is it too late? I rebooted my box several times already.

 

So how do I access smartctl? I have a keyboard and monitor hooked up to the server right now.

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RobJ, is it too late? I rebooted my box several times already.

The syslog is created in a memory resident file system.  When you reboot it is created again, so it is too late to get any of the older system logs.

 

If your array is still running slow, you can get a copy of the current system log.  It will help us to know what is happening now.

So how do I access smartctl? I have a keyboard and monitor hooked up to the server right now.

Good. 

Log in on the system console as "root"

If it asks you for a password, press enter... (unless you assigned a password, in that case, use it)

 

type the following commands:

cp /var/log/syslog /boot/syslog-2008-08-21.txt

chmod a-x /boot/syslog-2008-08-21.txt

 

The syslog-2008-08-21.txt file you created will then be visible in the /flash shared folder. or, you can move the flash drive to your PC and access it there.

 

Mode detailed instructions for this are in the wiki here : http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting

 

Instructions on how to invoke the smartctl command are here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting#Hard_drive_failures

 

Joe L.

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smartctl -t short -d ata /dev/sd?

 

Where ? is equal to drive letter you want to test.

 

Will start the test in the DRIVE itself.

Wait about 5 minutes then dump the logs

 

There is also a long thorough test using the  -t long keywords.

 

smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sd?  

will dump the logs to your screen (I would suggest saving them on your /boot flash.)

 

smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sd?  | todos >> /boot/smartlog.txt

chmod a-x /boot/smartlog.ltxt

 

 

 

 

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Running the smartctl commands which test the drive (long or short) do not produce any output. They just start the testing. You still have to run the normal smartctl command after the test finishes to see the results. If the test is still running, it will tell you that as well.

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Has anyone looked at my syslogs?

 

I sincerely apologize for forgetting you.  Unfortunately, work and financial difficulties and tropical systems have been grabbing all my attention.

 

I just took another look, and don't see anything wrong with your hardware.  According to this syslog, the system recognized 5 750GB drives without issue, then replayed a couple of transactions on each, indicating a faulty shutdown previously.  There are no hardware issues present, but because of the faulty shutdown and perhaps previous difficulties, a parity sync has been started, which of course would drastically slow all access down for hours.  The syslog ends there, within 10 minutes of booting, so I don't know what may have appeared later.

 

Is it possible that a parity sync was running when you have tested performance of the system?

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When you boot it up again, stop it (F2/F9/whatever) and go into the BIOS to look at, among other things, the CPU speed.

 

It is possible the heat either messed up the CPU or the mobo to the point where the CPU is running really slowly.  It is also possible that the mobo has some built in protection mechanisms that could have lowered the speed or set some other "run slow" flag somewhere.  Maybe your hard drives have been reset to some ancient IO mode on IDE?

 

Go through each BIOS screen and see if something is amiss.

 

Fortunately, I have very little experience here so all I can offer is a suggestion to look - I can't tell you exactly what to look for.

 

 

Bill

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Bill,

 

I checked the bios and everything is still set on auto, so I reset the CMOS but the results are still the same.

 

I think it is only the 5th drive giving me problems. I've been going through all the drives reading files, but as soon as I touch a certain folder on the 5th drive it freezes then gives me an "not accessible" and "network is unavailable"  error. After the error the server is inaccessible for a little bit but then starts working again after I give it a few minutes. All other drives are working fine...

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There are ReiserFS commands for checking disk structure. I cannot recall them at the moment - fsck? - but I'd be running them to check things. Think of it as a check disk for Linux. The issues you describe with things going offline\freezing etc. would seem to indicate a possible problem there - you MAY lose data. I had to run some of these commands a good while ago when I had some issues like yours and some issues were found and corrected.

 

I'd agree with kicking the guest's ass BTW! I cannot believe someone actually intentionally coverd a computer with a blanket! >:(

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I ran a check on all drives and received no errors.

 

BLKMGK, I don't know linux at all. How can I run this disk check?

 

So I have been playing with the box and I'm having problems with all drives and not one particular drive like I assumed. I can read the drives and watch my movies with no problems, but as soon as I start to move files around it freezes. I was deleting individual files from a folder with no problems, but when I tried to delete the whole folder it froze. All data is there and is still accessable as long as I don't delete or move files. I'm thinking its hardware related and the system is just toast after the overheat. Do you guys think a new mobo/cpu will fix things?

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cnv -

 

Read the FAQ and the Best of the Forums.  You will find info on running the Reiserfsck tool.  (You will also learn a great deal more about unRAID).

 

Problems like yours are about the hardest and most frustrating.  It could be anything.

 

I will tell you that the CPU / memory are unlikely causes.  These types of failures have different types of symptoms.  But anything is possible.  The PSU also seems unlikely IMO.

 

The MB is certainly a possibility, as are any add on controller cards, backplanes, and the drives themselves.  Cooling could also be a problem.

 

I always suggest that after trying the obvious (which you have already done), that you try to get to as basic a configuration as you can.  Disconnect all but 2 drives hooked directly to the MB with new SATA cables.  See if it is clean and stable.  If not, try 2 different drives with 2 different cables.  If it is still not clean and stable, the MB starts to look like the problem.  But if you are good with 2 drives, start to add things and see when the problem starts to occur.  If you add a drive and it causes a problem, try adding a different drive and see if it causes problems.  If one drive works and another doesn't, one of the drives starts to look like a problem.  Use you head and you should be able to isolate.  Post your experiences and the community may be able to help further and provide suggestions.  Be careful about drawing conclutions too quickly without double and triple checking your findings.

 

Based on years of experience, I can tell you that starting for a functional state and adding components to get to a broken state is MUCH more effective than starting from a broken state and removing components to try to get to a functional state.

 

Good luck!

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So I disconnected all the drives but two, a parity and one data. Everything is running fine for last 2 days. I deleted some files on unRaid and moved files from my computer onto the unRaid and no hiccups. Data trasfer is very slow at about 8mb a sec, but I think it has always been slow. I'm going to add a drive at a time and see what happens. BTW, what kind of transfer speeds do you guys see?

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