hmmm okay here's an update

 

initiated a parity check WITH correct yesterday.  ran all day, night and into today

 

after it was completed, it said that it ran and found 7960 errors, the same as the prior check.  didn't mention correcting them, but then again,  i'm not sure if that's normal,  i've never had an error before!  so here's a pic, is that normally how it looks when it runs, and is corrected?  or is it still not corrected?

 

ALSO noticed that the error column now shows errors for the drive that we've discussed before (one of the 3 that had pending reallocated sectors).  it is now showing 13 errors! 

 

shall i proceed to copy the data off this drive, onto other drives in the array, and then i guess remove the drive and test etc?  anything to do first?  i guess after i copy off the drive, onto other drives in the array, after i remove teh drive, i will have to rebuild parity correct?  ie when the drive is now gone, parity is not set without it correct?

It's safest to copy everything form each of the three drives onto other array drives. Then reset the config, Utils->New Config, and rebuild parity. If the copying was successful then run pre clear on the drives, otherwise put them in a Windows or Linux box for recovery.

ok so i've copied about half off of one of the drives (takes quite a while).  it will probably take a few days to copy off all three...

 

when the first is done, should i stop the array, and then un-assign the drive?  you mention 'new config' but i was wondering if i should  wait till all 3 are copied off of, or should i do it after each drive?

 

After all three have been copied. There is no point in generating new parity with an unreadable disk.

ok I will proceed to copy all stuff off all three drives.  will probably take most of a week!  will report back

 

one thing in the meantime i just want to confirm-  i think the idea is to copy everything off, then stop the array, and unassign the 3 (now empty) disks.  then, do i start the array and rebuild parity which will build parity on everything except the 3 unassigned drives?

 

Or once i'm done copying off, do i just select which drives i want in the new array using the 'new config' page?  never used the new config so curious how to do it.  or do i just keep the array on, and the 'new config' screen asks me what drives i want in the new config?

 

PS not sure if its a problem or not, but once i finish copying off this first drive, i will have to power down and add a 3tb (already precleared drive).  then i can resume copying off the other 2 drives.  i hope powering down, and then booting with the new drive, won't be a problem but let me know if you think it will be.  i think my server is hot swap compatible, so i guess i could just add the drive without powering down, but I've never done that before....and given my shaky parity situation, it seems like a bad time to break new ground!

 

PPS  I've been so focused on this problem that I've been a bit remiss about thanking everyone for their help and guidance... so THANKS!!!  in some ways this feels like a real pain because everything seems to be 'working' but i realize you guys are helping avoid a huge problem when one (or more) of my 20 drives inevitably goes bad!!!

 

 

PS not sure if its a problem or not, but once i finish copying off this first drive, i will have to power down and add a 3tb (already precleared drive).  then i can resume copying off the other 2 drives.

 

Are you copying all this data to other drives on the same array?  (sounds like it)

 

Not what I'd have done, but at least it gets the data off the drives -- but since you corrected parity you could have done the same thing by simply re-building one of the bad drives ... i.e. stop the array; remove the drive you want to get rid of from the config;  Start the array (so it shows it as a missing drive);  then Stop the array and add the new 3TB drive to the config in its place;  then Start the array and let it rebuild the drive onto the new 3TB unit.

 

Before you do this, you should run another parity check to confirm that there are zero sync errors (which should be the case since you ran a correcting check earlier).

 

hi yes i'm adding within the array... as a guy with an unraid server for almost two years, i still feel like a bit of a newb!  and i'm getting great advice but i think garycase and dgaschk have slightly different recommendations, likely both are full of merit. 

 

i considered removing the 'bad' drive and adding the new precleared drive, and rebuilding to it... but i think dgaschk is suggesting that the rebuild would have failed due to the pending reallocations on the other two drives.  i myself don't know what the best route is but i guess i've started down a path!

 

so not trying to play favorites, but i did like the idea of copying to other drives on the array as i think this means the files are still accessible... as well i would have needed to buy a couple of drives for my pc to handle copying the data to windows.  lastly, it seems that copying to other drives is going a bit faster than the connect from my server to my pc.

 

so i ran the correcting parity check yesterday and it seemed to work... i noticed though that it said the drive with the most pending reallocations now had 13 errors!

 

the weird part (i think) is that i've copied everything off it as of a few minutes ago, and now the main unraid page is now showing that that particular drive does NOT have any errors?  not sure if this is expected, or odd

 

i did add the 3tb drive, and will shortly start copying the other two drives to it (there's 5 more tb to copy off, so i'll put 3tb on the new drive, and then put the other 2tb onto several other drives)

 

 

ok should be done copying off my 3 drives by tonight.  next steps:

 

so once the 3 problem drives are empty, i plan to stop the array, and unassign the 3 drives.  as well at this time, i'm going to set a new (not precleared) 4tb drives as parity.  i will also unassign the old parity drive.

 

then as i understand it, parity will be calculated on the new array which will basically exclude the 3 prob drives, and the old parity drive.

 

then, i can preclear the former parity drive, and assuming its fine, add it back to the array.  as well, i can run preclears and other tests on the 3 problem drives

 

sound like a good plan?  should i do all this through the main page, or using the 'new config' tab.  i've never used 'new config' so not sure what it does?

think i'm going to ask my question in a new thread, since this thread has evolved so much... once i get the 3 problem drives out, and run some preclears on them, i'll post back to this thread

 

i'm going to set a new (not precleared) 4tb drives as parity.

Has this drive been tested by some other means? "New" does not mean it's good. You really need to run a full test on it before putting into use, either with preclear or some other testing procedure that verifies the entire drive capacity is good.

I agree with you but I'm just nervous because I don't have valid parity right now and feel exposed. I guess I could rebuild parity on the old 3 tb drive and preclear the new one while waiting.  I just wanted to save some time since this second option will mean I'm without parity for longer