April 26, 201313 yr I've sourced the hardware required to outfit my newly acquired hp n54l microserver with 6 drives. four 2tb in array with a 2tb parity and a 160gb ex-laptop drive for apps and cache duties. unfortunately the esata to sata cable is on back order and won't arrive until the 4th of may. my question is, can i preclear the 160gb drive using the motherboard sata connector, start loading apps and using it for cache, and then later on move it to the esata to sata connection, and then add the last 2tb later on.
April 26, 201313 yr As I understand it, since you are using the 160gb dirve for cache and apps there's no need to preclear it. It's not considered part of the array. If you have the time, there's no reason to not run preclear on the drive as it's a very good way to stress test the drive. But, I would think since it's got a few hours on it already, a long Smart Test would be OK. Since the cache drive is not part of the array it's not "backed up" so you might want to consider occasionally "tar.gz-ing" it up to a share on the array....here's a thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=25507.0.
April 26, 201313 yr As I understand it, since you are using the 160gb dirve for cache and apps there's no need to preclear it. It's not considered part of the array. If you have the time, there's no reason to not run preclear on the drive as it's a very good way to stress test the drive. But, I would think since it's got a few hours on it already, a long Smart Test would be OK. Since the cache drive is not part of the array it's not "backed up" so you might want to consider occasionally "tar.gz-ing" it up to a share on the array....here's a thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=25507.0. It is ofcourse up to everyone but I would not agree. The reason you preclear is to make more sure that a disk is error free and will not cause issues. An array drive is protected by the parity system, a cache drive is not, therefor you could argue that it might be more important.. In any case: you're response might read to some people that it is cannot be avoided to do a preclear: that is not true. Preclear is actually not part of the unraid system, it is an external tool (build by Joe L) to test and stress a new drive. You can absolutely add a drive to an array without doing a preclear. Personally: If I would need to change a disk in my windows pc I would even preclear that..
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