March 20, 201313 yr I had a red balled drive that wouldn't spin down so I had to do a cold shut down. When I restarted the system automatically started doing a parity rebuild. When the rebuild finished the drive was showing as red balled. I've been having problems with this drive for a little while where it would spin up and stay active and not spin down or allow me to power down the array. I've checked all the cables and removed everything and even swapped it's place with another drive and the problem seems to follow. I'm a little confused if that means parity is actually valid? Can a parity check run when one drive is red balled? I have another blank drive in my array. Am I better off just copying the data from the red balled drive (which I'm guessing would just use the parity drive) or should I do a rebuild by popping in a new blank drive? I ran a smart report and got the following ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 180 175 021 Pre-fail Always - 6000 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 154 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 2425 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 23 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 11 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 779 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 121 112 000 Old_age Always - 29 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
March 20, 201313 yr The red-balled drive won't fix itself. Your array is not protected right now and it is simulating the red-balled drive using the parity and all other data disks. You need to replace the drive or try to rebuild the contents back onto it. Try this; stop the array unassign the drive start the array stop the array assign the drive start the array - this should kick off a rebuild. If there is any kind of box to click for rebuild use it. You can copy the content to another drive first if you want but it will be slow.
March 20, 201313 yr if a drive is red balled it is placed outside of the array, the data you are now seeing as if comming from that drive is constructed by combining the data on ALL your drives together with your parity drive. If you have an empty drive that is not part of the array yet then add it to the array now (its best if it has been pre-cleared. The data on the red drive will then be reconstructed (using the data on ALL your drives and the parity drive) on the new drive. If you have a drive that is allready part of the array but empty then I would indeed copy all your data to that other drive and then reconstruct parity so your array will have one disk less (namely the red balled one). Also: remember that at this moment you have NO parity protection, any drive failure happening now will make sure you loose the data on that second failing disk AND on the disk that is red balled right now. Unraid parity only works with ONE unavailable drive, if another drive becomes unavailable then data on BOTH unavailable drives will be gone. This is why it is a good idea to have a precleared drive ready and waiting in your system (but powered down), so in the event of failure you only have to activate it, that significantly reduces the amount of time you are running in no-failure-protection mode.
March 20, 201313 yr lionelhutz''s suggestion will also work, it will rebuild upon the same drive again, this will be a good solution if the drive is actually ok but there was a red ball for some other reason. If you have the option I would rebuild on a new drive and then thoroughly preclear the drive that has failed now, to make sure it is actually ok. Should the drive be failing on itself then rebuilding will cause issues again lateron. Your smart results however look good, so there is a good chance lionels suggestion will work, check all cabling and possible power before you rebuild, something was wrong..
March 20, 201313 yr Author I do have a drive that is being precleared right now. It's 62% through the last step of Post Read. I guess I'll wait a few more hours until it's done then do a parity rebuild on it. I did check all the cabling etc. Once I shut down to replace the drive, I'll redo all the cabling again.
March 20, 201313 yr You are so confused. A drive that is "red" has had a "write" to it fail. It is no longer being read OR written to. (Basically, unRAID will ignore it as if it is not there, as it is GUARANTEED to have the incorrect contents, since the write to it failed. ) The contents are being re-constructed by use of parity AND ALL the other data drives. The problem could be the drive, the cables to it, the power supply, the disk controller, or just about anything except the "mouse" The smart report shows 11 power off retracts, did you hit the power button and shut down hard frequently when that drive was in service? If not, it might be a poor/loose/intermittant power connection to the drive. When ANY drive is disabled (red indicator) it is impossible for the array to just be power cycled and have it start a re-construction from parity and all the other data drives. It will never reconstruct onto itself unless you force the array to forget the model/serial number of the old drive. Parity is the only thing right now that is valid and allowing you to read the contents of the disk that is off-line. (red) Yes, copy critical files off that disk. Once you do that, you can try swapping in a new drive. You should have captured the syslog when you first noticed the drive failure. It might have given you more clues as to what had happened. See here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_does_the_Red_Ball_mean.3F Honestly, if the drive will not spin down, it is being accessed. Forcing the array off is really not a good idea. You REALLY need to stop the add-ons that are preventing the array from stopping. Joe L.
March 20, 201313 yr Author The only add-ons I have are unmenu and screen. The drive is one drive out of 5 in the Icy Dock cage. There is no direct power cable to the single drive but to the cage. Right now the preclear is being done on a drive that is not sitting in the Icy Dock cage. When the preclear is done, should I power down, then pop out the drive from the Icy Dock, and connect it directly to the MB, reboot, and see if it comes back without the redball? I guess that would tell me if there's a problem with something in the Icy Dock. No I don't believe I did a cycle off 15 times. Maybe twice.
March 20, 201313 yr The only add-ons I have are unmenu and screen. The drive is one drive out of 5 in the Icy Dock cage. There is no direct power cable to the single drive but to the cage. Right now the preclear is being done on a drive that is not sitting in the Icy Dock cage. When the preclear is done, should I power down, then pop out the drive from the Icy Dock, and connect it directly to the MB, reboot, and see if it comes back without the redball? I guess that would tell me if there's a problem with something in the Icy Dock. No I don't believe I did a cycle off 15 times. Maybe twice. It will not re-construct and remove the red indicator until YOU do something to cause unRAID to forget its serial number. See the wiki for guidance http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_does_the_Red_Ball_mean.3F
March 20, 201313 yr see if it comes back without the redball? You need to re-read the first sentence in my response...
March 22, 201313 yr Author I popped in the new precleared drive and did a rebuild. Everything seems to look good. My drive only contains ripped blu rays and I haven't written any movies to it for about 5 months. I'm now running a preclear on the drive that was giving me problems. Should be done some time this evening. Hopefully the results are good.
March 23, 201313 yr Author Well here's the results of my preclear. If I'm not mistaken there's nothing wrong with my drive.. ================================================================= 1.13 unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdf cycle 1 of 1, partition start on sector 64 Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed DONE Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes DONE Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward. DONE Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4 DONE Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area DONE Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes DONE Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state DONE Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning DONE Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries DONE Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared. DONE Disk Post-Clear-Read completed DONE isk Temperature: 34C, Elapsed Time: 32:58:02 =======================================================================1.13 = WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0 WD-WCAZAF984375 = Disk /dev/sdf has been successfully precleared = with a starting sector of 64 =========================================================================== * Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdf /tmp/smart_finish_sdf ATTRIBUTE NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS RAW_VALUE Seek_Error_Rate = 100 200 0 ok 0 Temperature_Celsius = 116 124 0 ok 34 No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW 0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear. 0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1. 0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1. 0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear, the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change. 0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear. 0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear, the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.
March 23, 201313 yr Author and here's my smartctl results SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 179 175 021 Pre-fail Always - 6008 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 156 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 2472 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 24 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 11 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 791 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 119 112 000 Old_age Always - 31 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t] SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1 SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS 1 0 0 Not_testing 2 0 0 Not_testing 3 0 0 Not_testing 4 0 0 Not_testing 5 0 0 Not_testing Selective self-test flags (0x0): After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk. If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
March 23, 201313 yr Well here's the results of my preclear. If I'm not mistaken there's nothing wrong with my drive.. No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW 0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear. 0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1. 0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1. 0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear, the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change. 0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear. 0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear, the number of sectors re-allocated did not change. Looks great.
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