January 13, 201313 yr I have an array made up of 2 and 3 TB disk. When I try to add a 3TB disk as the parity I get the message that it is not the largest and it wont add it? Is a 3TB parity disk acceptable still or is there a work around for this?
January 13, 201313 yr I have an array made up of 2 and 3 TB disk. When I try to add a 3TB disk as the parity I get the message that it is not the largest and it wont add it? Is a 3TB parity disk acceptable still or is there a work around for this? Upgrade to -rc10 before posting anything new in here please.
January 14, 201313 yr Author All ready to upgrade but looks like the release notes section is offline, so I don't know what bits to patch ;-(
January 15, 201313 yr It's pretty well the same as always, replace bzroot and bzimage, then boot and run New Perms.
January 15, 201313 yr Author Is HPA an issue with this release then as the BIOS settings have not been changed since the system was running fully configured with 4.7?
January 15, 201313 yr Is HPA an issue with this release then as the BIOS settings have not been changed since the system was running fully configured with 4.7? It does interfere with unRAID and its size detection mechanism (and 3TB disks support was added in V5.0). Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (3): import 2 8,48 2930266532 WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0983361 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk2: [8,48] (sdd) WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0983361 size: 2930266532 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (5): import 4 8,16 2930265476 WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0912979 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk4: [8,16] (sdb) WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0912979 size: 2930265476
January 15, 201313 yr Author OK I can see from the list below that the Parity disk, 0, seems to have a slightly smaller size even though it is also a 3TB drive... Will try to find out how to disable HPA tonight.. Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk0: [8,64] (sde) WDC_WD30EZRX-00MMMB0_WD-WCAWZ1613334 size: 2930265476 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: disk0 replaced Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (2): import 1 8,80 1953514552 WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY0878979 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk1: [8,80] (sdf) WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY0878979 size: 1953514552 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (3): import 2 8,48 2930266532 WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0983361 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk2: [8,48] (sdd) WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0983361 size: 2930266532 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (4): import 3 8,32 1953513496 WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY1705381 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk3: [8,32] (sdc) WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY1705381 size: 1953513496 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (5): import 4 8,16 2930265476 WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0912979 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk4: [8,16] (sdb) WDC_WD30EZRS-00J99B0_WD-WCAWZ0912979 size: 2930265476 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (6): import 5 8,112 1953514552 WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY0704588 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk5: [8,112] (sdh) WDC_WD2002FYPS-01U1B1_WD-WCAVY0704588 size: 1953514552 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: mdcmd (7): import 6 8,96 1953514552 WDC_WD2002FYPS-02W3B0_WD-WCAVY7162087 Jan 15 06:39:20 MATRIX kernel: md: import disk6: [8,96] (sdg) WDC_WD2002FYPS-02W3B0_WD-WCAVY7162087 size: 1953514552 Ok i've had chance to check my BIOS and there is no obvious HPA setting. As I currently have 7 disks on the box and only 3 are showing HPA I think these must be the disks from my other Raid system and have a hidden HPA partition on them. I have PreCleared the disk but guess it has not removed the partition. Is this partition really such an issue for Unraid, if so I have to fine some method of cleansing the disks
January 17, 201313 yr Author Well I have taken all the disks out and ran them through HDAT2 which did not remove the HPA partion I guess it needs a re-format/partition after this? Putting the disks on my "clean up machine" even added a new HPA partition to one of the disks Grrrrrrr ....Strange thing is after all this work and re-starting Unraid the Parity disk started building!!!! Do I still need to remove the HPA partitions?
January 17, 201313 yr Well I have taken all the disks out and ran them through HDAT2 which did not remove the HPA partion I guess it needs a re-format/partition after this? Putting the disks on my "clean up machine" even added a new HPA partition to one of the disks Grrrrrrr ....Strange thing is after all this work and re-starting Unraid the Parity disk started building!!!! Do I still need to remove the HPA partitions? First, you need to turn off the BIOS function that is HPA'ing your disks on your cleanup machine. It's going to cause you all sorts of grief if you don't. Yes, you still need to remove the HPA. I suppose technically you could add HPA to all your disks, thus making them the same size, but in the long run, it would be much better for you to sort out the issue and get all your disks clean. Once the HPA is reset, I would run a preclear, or at least write all zeros to the drive if you have already done a full preclear. Do you have any data on the unraid array right now, or are you just setting it up? Are you aware that when you remove HPA from a drive, it will need to be rebuilt in unraid? You will lose data if you remove HPA from a currently assigned unraid data drive. The usual procedure is to make sure your parity is current on a non HPA'd drive, remove one of your HPA'd data drives, reset it, then let unraid rebuild it. You can't have more than one drive change and keep data in unraid.
January 17, 201313 yr A few comments, I'll start by strongly agreeing with JonathanM that you HAVE to turn off the 'save BIOS to disk' option in the other machine's BIOS settings! (I assume it is a Gigabyte?) When it added the HPA to an existing UnRAID data disk, it clobbered/overwrote the final sectors of that drive, possibly damaging files and the Reiser file system, and definitely damaging the parity info at the end of your drives. That means you cannot reliably rebuild any drives now, which is a real problem. At the moment, the only drive suitable to be a parity drive is Disk 2, as it is the only one that is a full size 3TB drive. I wonder if HDAT2 did not appear to work because it was run on the machine that forces new HPA's on installed drives. Perhaps HDAT removed the HPA, then the machine put it back. If that feature was turned off, then perhaps it would work correctly. I know that Tom required all drives to have their HPA removed as of v4.7 and later, but I'm not really sure why it is still necessary. Technically, only the parity drive is required to be HPA-free, so that it is always the largest drive.
January 17, 201313 yr Author Hi Guys lots of good comments. The unraid box has a Supermicro MoBo with no HPA enabled. The other machine is a GigaByte and I can find no way of turning HPA off. As the Raid in in operation and fully loaded with Data I think I will have to disable HPA on the other machine clean the Parity drive then rebuild it then after syncing rebuild the other drives one as a time!!!! Oh well its life!!!
January 17, 201313 yr The other machine is a GigaByte and I can find no way of turning HPA off.Check if there is an update available for your BIOS.
January 17, 201313 yr Author Yes loaded the bios update utility and ran it.... no change Damn you GigaByte Damn you to Heck!!!!
January 17, 201313 yr I don't believe it mentions the word HPA. It is usually in the section of options for BIOS recovery, something like 'Save BIOS to disk'. It was not in earlier versions of the Gigabyte BIOS, so as jonathanm implied, you may need a more recent version, where they added it after so many people complained.
January 18, 201313 yr Author My board is quite an old one and I have checked the BIOS with Gigabyte and it is the latest.... no HPA or copy BIOS in the menu list though... MOBO is a GA-MA78GM-S2H
January 18, 201313 yr On my MA78LM-S2H motherboard the option in the (Award) BIOS is under Advanced BIOS Features, and is Backup BIOS Image to HDD I don't know if that's much help.
January 18, 201313 yr Author No can't see that on mine ;-( will have to manually look on the web and see if there is a BIOS patch for this other than from Gigabyte. In the mean time I can always boot a HDAT2 USB drive on my Supermicro UnRaid and clear the disks down that way, starting with the parity.
January 18, 201313 yr I took a look at the manual, and there doesn't appear to be a way to turn it off, the nearest I can find in the manual is the cryptic "Support for Virtual Dual BIOS" which is mentioned on page 12 of the PDF and doesn't appear to be explained anywhere else in the manual.
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