Hi, I am building a NAS with UNRAIZD and I have three 4TB drives that I will be starting with... I have about 4T more in drives that have data on them but I also want to use those drives. How do I copy the data to the 4TB drives? Can I build the NAS with all the drives in place and then copy the data once the first three 4TB drives are up and configured with the UNRAID?

 

tia,

ROn

Build the server with your 3 4TB drives;  then copy all the data from your other drives from another PC to the UnRAID server;  and then you can add those drives to the array.

 

Note that when you add the additional drives to the array, UnRAID will clear (write zeroes) to those drives before they're added to the array -- or you can prepare them first using the pre-clear script (which will also zero the drives), which will minimize the time that UnRAID requires to add them to the array (instead of many hours -- as many as 30 or so for a 4TB drive -- it will just take a few minutes).

 

Can the preclear be done once they are in the NAS box? Do I boot to UNRAID and then do the preclear script?

 

tia,

Ron

Once the drives are in the box (but not part of the array) you can PreClear them. When you run PreClear with the -l switch you'll get a list of drives available for preclearing. To do multiple disks at once you'll need to install and use the Screen utility. It's laid out in the Wiki pretty well. Screen is very handy even for preclear on a single drive as you can Putty into the box remotely and check the status.

 

 

Yes, you can pre-clear them in the NAS box even while the NAS is running ... the pre-clear script runs independently of UnRAID (it's just another Linux task).

 

In fact you can switch through multiple windows and start multiple simultaneous pre-clears (I wouldn't do more than 3 at once).    Details on running pre-clear are outlined here:  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

You can, as suggested above, use Screen to start multiple pre-clears ... but if you have a monitor and keyboard on the UnRAID box it's easier to simply do it from the console.

 

Do NOT start a pre-clear via a Telnet session (or multiple pre-clears from multiple Telnet sessions -- which you can also do) ... as the Telnet session would have to remain open for the entire duration of the pre-clear (a LONG time ... well over a day for large drives).

 

Well today I got the NAS up and running... I installed 3 Hitachi 4TB HDDs (one was a old one from my win 7 PC and the other 2 were brand new). When I went to do a preclear from the prompt (using the -l command) it only shows one of the 3 HDDs.

 

I am using UNRAID 4.7.

Will the others appear after the first one is precleared?

When I went into the web interface I saw all 3 as options on the devices section. I have tried removing the HDDs and reinstalling them, checked the SATA cables and it made no dif.

 

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

 

tia,

Ron

For starters, you can't use v4.7 ==> only v5 supports drives > 2TB

 

Start over with v5 

Hey im a total noob to all of this but I have just gone through the same thing. I used 5.0-rc15a  for the install and pretty much followed this guide:

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Configuration_Tutorial#Install_UnMENU_for_Screen_and_eMail_Notifications

 

worked a treat. FYI I ran preclear on 3 3tb hdds on a double pass and it took nearly 60 hours, so I hope your not in a rush

 

Now I am just trying to figure out the plex install

I did a safe shutdown and started over with 5.0... I am doing a preclear on 2 of the 3 HDDs. For some reason it is not seeing the one I started the preclear on in 4.7. How can I start it over for the one that is missing? Do I just remove it and re install it?

 

How many runs did you do on a drive with preclear?

I did a safe shutdown and started over with 5.0... I am doing a preclear on 2 of the 3 HDDs. For some reason it is not seeing the one I started the preclear on in 4.7. How can I start it over for the one that is missing? Do I just remove it and re install it?

 

How many runs did you do on a drive with preclear?

 

The easy part first, the conventional wisdom on the number of preclear runs seems to be 3.

 

Preclearing should be transparent to unRAID versions meaning what you did on 4.7 should also be valid in 5. But from an earlier post of yours I thought you indicated one of the three drives is not being seen by preclear or unRAID for that matter.

That would seem to indicate there are issues elsewhere....and that means going back through the hardware/BIOS connections to ensure the drive is really connecting. You might have to do some swapping of cables and SATA ports to isolate the problem.

 

Otherwise, it the "missing" drive is still wedded to unRAID it won't be available for preclear. You have to remove it from unRAID by doing a "new config" in the util's

 

I hope that helps!

Thanks, I will see what happens when I am done with the 2 drives preclearing. Correct me if I am wrong... I do not add them to UNRAID until I have precleared 3 times correct?

 

tia,

Ron

There's no hard-and-fast-rule about the number of times to run preclear on a drive. Preclear will "weed out" any marginal drive as most failures happen fairly early in their operational career. Sorry, that's a long way of saying, infant mortality.

 

To some it's a question of time. Three runs seems to be a happy medium. Of course, 4TB drives will take a long time and you may want to get unRAID up and running. Multiple runs of preclear provides good "piece of mind."

 

One thing I'd like to point out. If you need details on all the switches available with preclear, I found it easier to just take a look at the script in Notepad or a text editor like Midnight Commander's MCedit. I could never see the switches on my monitor screen since "more" is not available. And finding them on the forums too a lot of work. Maybe you've encountered this. You can set preclear to run a preset number of times.

Once I get through with the first preclear I will do a 2 run preclear on both HDDs. Can I reboot before I do the double preclear?

Once I get through with the first preclear I will do a 2 run preclear on both HDDs. Can I reboot before I do the double preclear?

I probably would (reboot that is).

 

BTW, strongly consider some sort of UPS. The double-preclear will be like the Energizer bunny. If you get a power glitch which causes the computer to reboot, preclear will stop. unRAID uses apcupsd and it does a good job of gracefully shutting down the server if power is not restored in 5-6 minutes.

 

BUT it will float you over short outages without causing PreClear to fail..and when it fails, it can't pick up from where it left off 

I picked up a UPS and the NAS and my projector are currently plugged into it. :-)

 

I have not configured the UPS though. :-(

There should be plenty of time for that. Good luck!

Definitely agree with a UPS ... I consider it a mandatory accessory for UnRAID (actually I have one on ALL of my systems).

 

You don't need ANY "switches" in pre-clear (except for the number of passes if you want to do 3 passes) ... with drives > 2TB it automatically uses the correct 4K alignment.

 

r.e. the one you pre-cleared with 4.7 => pre-clear doesn't actually care what the UnRAID version is ... it's a separate script that runs under the Linux OS.    But if anything didn't finish correctly, you may need to redo that drive.

 

Definitely agree with a UPS ... I consider it a mandatory accessory for UnRAID (actually I have one on ALL of my systems).

 

You don't need ANY "switches" in pre-clear (except for the number of passes if you want to do 3 passes) ... with drives > 2TB it automatically uses the correct 4K alignment.

 

r.e. the one you pre-cleared with 4.7 => pre-clear doesn't actually care what the UnRAID version is ... it's a separate script that runs under the Linux OS.    But if anything didn't finish correctly, you may need to redo that drive.

 

By re do... Do you mean remove reinstall and then run preclear?

 

tia,

Ron

By re do... Do you mean remove reinstall and then run preclear?

 

No, just re-run the pre-clear script.  If it won't allow you to select that drive, it's because it "thinks" it's assigned to UnRAID.  If that's the case, you need to re-do your flash drive so it has a "clean" (empty) config.

 

By re do... Do you mean remove reinstall and then run preclear?

 

No, just re-run the pre-clear script.  If it won't allow you to select that drive, it's because it "thinks" it's assigned to UnRAID.  If that's the case, you need to re-do your flash drive so it has a "clean" (empty) config.

Will I have to re run preclear for all the drives once I clear the flash drive... Or just the one I need precleared?

 

tia,

Ron

Will I have to re run preclear for all the drives once I clear the flash drive... Or just the one I need precleared?

 

If you reformat and build a nice clean flash drive that has NO impact on pre-cleared drives.  All that will do is ensure there are NO drives indicated as part of the array ... something the pre-clear script checks for and won't allow you to select a drive that's part of the array.  You don't need to redo the flash drive UNLESS you're not able to select it ... which would tend to indicate that pre-clear "thinks" it's assigned to the array (which means the flash drive info is indicating that).

 

Finally made it through the first preclear with 2 of the 4TB drives. I then shutdown the system and moved the drive that was not being seen to another slot and then booted up... Now it sees all 3 HDDs. I then started a preclear on all 3 drives. It looks like everything will be ok now. Once I have it up and I am happy I will buy the plus or pro and install my smaller SATA HDDs.

My 2nd preclear is coming to a end soon... How do I know if all 3 have finished their preclear? Since all 3 HDDs are the same model and size will they finish at the same time?

 

tia,

Ron

My 2nd preclear is coming to a end soon... How do I know if all 3 have finished their preclear? Since all 3 HDDs are the same model and size will they finish at the same time?

 

tia,

Ron

 

Not necessarily ... but they should be relatively close.  Multiple pre-clear tasks won't all necessarily get the same time-slices as Linux runs;  the drives can have very slight differences; etc.    But if you started them all at the same time, they will generally finish with the same hour.