Hi,

 

I'm new to Unraid server and setting up my first server.

 

Have 2 questions to ask?

 

1) I ran preclear and zero on all my drives but did not get an email confirmation that the zero cycle finished on any of them (see below)

2) What is my next step with teh drives to run preclear again? 

 

I've attached a syslog of a bootup sequence incase it is helpful. 

 

I'm running Unraid 5.0-rc12a

 

My system is

Core i3 - 3220

8Gb Ram

ASrock PRO-MVP4 board

1 - 3TB WD EARX  (unassigned)

2 - 2TB WD EARX  (unassigned)

 

Question 1

 

I was following the config guide in the wiki and had started to preclear my drives using the command.  I setup the default format as 4K in the web UI

 

./preclear_disk.sh -M 4 /dev/sdX ("root" email address)

 

I ran the preclears from screen so I could log out and open the connection at a later date.

 

I setup email and ssmtp to get emailed updates about the preclear process.  I confirmed this worked

 

I got email updates that the preclear finished on all drives and that the zero cycle had started.  THe last updates I got at 8 or 9am were that both the 2TB drives were at 50% complete the zero cycle and the 3TB drive was at 25% zero cycle.  After that I did not receive any further email updates.  When I got home around 7pm and logged into telnet and tried screen -r no screen sessions were running (I have enough RAM so did not think 3 screens running would be too taxing on the system).  Is it normal to not get an email regarding the zero cycle process?  I did not grab the logs so I realize it might be hard to get help on this.

 

Question 2

 

I would like to know how I can move forward.

 

I have not assigned any of the drives yet and want to do 3 preclear cycles on each drive to find any HW issues before I start copying data

What command should I run to do this?  Should I run this one drive at a time so I don't have to worry about screen closing on me?

 

./preclear_disk.sh -c 3 -M 4 /dev/sdX

 

Thanks,

Unraid_syslog.txt

Sounds like none of the preclears completed.

 

Are there preclear reports in /boot/preclear_reports for each of the drives?  If there are not three files per drive, the process did not complete.  (You probably ran out of memory because you did not use the -r NN -w NN -b NN options.)

You are a bit confused.    You must have gotten e-mails stating the pre-READ had completed (not the pre-clear) and that the writing of zeros had begin. 

You are a bit confused.    You must have gotten e-mails stating the pre-READ had completed (not the pre-clear) and that the writing of zeros had begin.

 

You are correct. 

1) I don't have an preclear log files so the pre clear did not finish

2) THe emails told me the preread was finished

 

Just to doublecheck that based on another thread the preclear command I should run is

 

preclear_disk.sh -c 3 -M 4 -r 65536 -w 65536 -b 200 /dev/sdX

 

Thanks Joe L for the help

Just to doublecheck that based on another thread the preclear command I should run is

 

preclear_disk.sh -c 3 -M 4 -r 65536 -w 65536 -b 200 /dev/sdX

 

Thanks Joe L for the help

That will work.  You probably want to invoke "screen" first, and then invoke the preclear script from within a screen session, as 3 cycles of a large drive will take days to complete with a single drive, and longer with multiple concurrently clearing.

I've tried a few different things and still can't seem to get my preclear script to succeed.  I'm thinking something is causing a reboot of the system but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it.

 

 

I took Joe L's suggestion Joe and added in the -r -w -b commands to my preclear argument.

 

I first ran it first on two drives last night with screen and that didn't get past 25% pre read progress this morning.

 

I then restarted the preclear with only one drive with screen this morning.  As of 3pm it got to the 50% pre read mark.  By 8:15pm when I got home  and ran screen there were  no more screens running.  This is what I seem to run into all the time with my preclear.

 

I looked at the syslog and noticed that there are only timestamps starting from 8pm onwards from today.  I think something caused the system to reset as the system should have been on since this morning when I started my preclear (I would have expected timestamps from earlier in the day).  Is there a way to check if the system rebooted itself, or to prevent from rebooting if it encounters an error so I can grab more debug.

 

Thanks,

syslog.txt

Just incase someone else runs into a similar problem

 

I changed three things as I tried to figure out why my preclear script was not completing

 

1) Plugged the computer into a wall socket instead of my power bar

2) Ran the preclear_disk.sh script without the 'M' argument for emails

3) Made sure not to type 'exit' at the prompt before I closed PUtty down.

 

So far I have finished 3 preclear cycles on 1 of my 3 drives and have preclear running on the other two (both are in the middle of the 2nd of 3 preclear cycles).

 

I can't say what fixed my problem as I tried all 3 things together but I think it was number 3. 

 

I'll post my preclear results in the right forum after I'm done. 

 

THanks for Joe for his help.

If you close a putty session then anything running in that session is terminated! 

 

If you are running a pre-clear via a Putty connection, then you either need to keep the connection open for the whole time the pre-clear is running, or install the 'screen' package so that you can disconnect from the session and re-connect to it later.

Just incase someone else runs into a similar problem

 

I changed three things as I tried to figure out why my preclear script was not completing

 

1) Plugged the computer into a wall socket instead of my power bar

2) Ran the preclear_disk.sh script without the 'M' argument for emails

3) Made sure not to type 'exit' at the prompt before I closed PUtty down.

 

So far I have finished 3 preclear cycles on 1 of my 3 drives and have preclear running on the other two (both are in the middle of the 2nd of 3 preclear cycles).

 

I can't say what fixed my problem as I tried all 3 things together but I think it was number 3. 

 

I'll post my preclear results in the right forum after I'm done. 

 

THanks for Joe for his help.

Sounds like 3) is where you messed up alright.

 

Since you were running in screen, "exit" terminated the screen session (and with it the preclear) instead of the PuTTY session. You should detach from screen with CTRL-A d, then you can "exit" PuTTY and later attach to the still running screen session with "screen -r". Linux Screen Tutorial and How To