Greetings,

 

I'm in the process of upgrading my parity drive to 6Tb. I've put it in the server and started it. Everything comes up, and the array is un-started. It tells me the 4tb old parity drive is missing, but there is no way to assign the new 6tb one?? Its been a while since I did this. Is there a device page?? It would seem you assign the drives from the main page. Very odd!

 

Can someone help me to understand what is going on? I thought all I did was drop the drop-down box down and select the new drive? The drop-box shows no other option than "No Device"

 

Also, the new 6tb drive is making a funny noise like it is accessing it (like a pulse), but seems to stop once unraid has loaded.

 

Is there a way to check this disk under windows XP - as I don't have any spare slots in my server.

 

I'm running unraid 5.0.5. The log is attached.

 

Thx for your assistance.

syslog-20150320-081506.zip

Since it's the parity drive, just do a New Config and assign it as parity -- then UnRAID will do a parity sync to the new drive.

 

Suggest you shutdown and recheck your cabling to the drive. Sounds like a connection issue.

 

Did you preclear the new disk? You should always preclear a new disk to give it a good workout to weed out the early mortality drives.

Since it's the parity drive, just do a New Config and assign it as parity -- then UnRAID will do a parity sync to the new drive.

 

He said the drive isn't showing up in the drop-down box. Must not be connected.

Ahh yes, I missed that.  Agree it's likely a cabling issue ... or potentially a defective drive.

 

Thx for the pointers.

 

I can't preclear the new drive because I don't have any spare connections to do so.

 

I've since included the log. It doesn't seem to show the new drive.

 

The cables seemed fine (first thing I checked). The drive is powering up. (Like I said - perhaps a dud drive?) Can I test?

 

I've put the old 4Tb one back in and the server is back up. What to do now???

 

Is there a possibility the MB doesn't recognise 6Tb? I thought if it saw the 4tb drive a 6tb would be okay?

You're correct r.e. 6TB support => the differentiator is at 2TB ... if the controller supports 4TB drives, it will support 6TB drives, so that's not the issue.

 

Sounds like the drive may in fact be defective -- but just to be CERTAIN try a different SATA cable.

 

I run my preclears from another PC with the free version of unRaid 5 installed on a bootable flash drive.  Then I don't need to worry about the number of ports I have available.  For me I would then just pull the old drive and insert the new and still have given the drive a good workout before putting it into use.  Even a parity drive gets several cycles of preclear here.

I run my preclears from another PC with the free version of unRaid 5 installed on a bootable flash drive.  Then I don't need to worry about the number of ports I have available.  For me I would then just pull the old drive and insert the new and still have given the drive a good workout before putting it into use.  Even a parity drive gets several cycles of preclear here.

I guess the "other" PC has to be running linux - or is there a preclear script for windows?

 

Looks like the drive is going back.

I guess the "other" PC has to be running linux - or is there a preclear script for windows?

 

No, it doesn't matter what the other PC normally runs.  You're going to boot it from a USB flash drive with the basic version of UnRAID, and run the pre-clear script from that.

 

Just be CERTAIN you don't assign any drives to that free version of UnRAID ... AND be VERY CERTAIN that you're pre-clearing the right drive 

 

Pre-clearing your OS drive on the "other" PC wouldn't work out well !!  8)

Pre-clearing your OS drive on the "other" PC wouldn't work out well !!  8)

 

You're not wrong.

 

Will the preclear work through a USB dock? I could use my wife's old laptop as the "Other PC"

I'm not certain, but I believe pre-clear will indeed work through a USB bridge.

 

HOWEVER ... that would be VERY slow => assuming it's a USB v2 port, it would probably take ~ 3 times as long as with a SATA port, which would be a VERY long time for a 6TB drive  :)

 

MUCH better to use a PC where you can connect the drive to a SATA port.

 

[if you're paranoid about pre-clearing the wrong drive, just unplug the SATA connections to the other drives in the system while you're using it to do the pre-clear.]

 

Pre-clearing your OS drive on the "other" PC wouldn't work out well !!  8)

 

You're not wrong.

 

Will the preclear work through a USB dock? I could use my wife's old laptop as the "Other PC"

If the old laptop has USB 3.0 ports it would be acceptable if you booted with unRAID 6.  I don't believe unRAID 5 has drivers for USB 3.0.  If however as I suspect the laptop is limited to USB 2.0 then I doubt you would like the time it would take to do a preclear but I believe it would work - like garycase said above.

 

 

Got any friends that could loan you a PC?  If you do then you could just disconnect all the drives and connect your replacement and preclear it for a week (if using 3 cycles) and then connect up the existing drives and give it back to your friends.

 

 

Another option would be to do the same thing with your current server.  Disconnect all your existing drives including your boot flash drive.  Then preclear the replacement on your server.  Once that is done you could then add it in to replace your parity drive once you have all your existing disks connected again including your original boot flash.

Agree USB 3 would be fast enough ... but I assume "... wife's old laptop ..." is unlikely to have USBv3 ports.

 

Whatever you elect to use, be aware it's going to be tied up for several days to do multiple pre-clear cycles on a 6TB drive (or a couple of weeks if you use a USBv2 bridge).    Actually, the time may not be a big factor if you're using an old laptop you don't otherwise need -- that's up to you.

 

 

 

Another thought =>  Since this is a parity drive, you don't really need to do a pre-clear ... you just need to thoroughly test the drive.

 

A safer, and less disruptive, way to test this on a PC is to just connect it to a SATA port;  install Western Digital's free Data Lifeguard for Windows; and then test it with that.    Do a Quick test; then an Extended test; then Write Zeroes to the entire drive (there are 2 options - quick and full ... do the full);  and then repeat the quick and extended tests.

 

This cycle will take a few days, but the PC is fully useable during the entire time, since you're still running Windows.

 

I've found that any drive that passes that round of testing is fine -- no worries about infant mortality.    Once that's done, just shut down; remove the drive; and install it in your server as your new parity drive.

 

Thx Gary for the insight. It's a USB 2.0 dock .

 

Just to add another wrinkle to the mix, my wife's win8.1 machine does recognises the drive and asks to intialise it (MBR / GPT??) It says that GPT isn't recognised on any previous version of windoze.

 

So I tried again under XP - and found I can see the drive in Device Manager under disk drives, but it doesn't show in the Disk Management console. Very strange. I'm leaning toward having another go in the server.

XP won't see the drive because it's > 2TB, but I THINK Data Lifeguard will still work fine with it, even on XP ... not certain, but wouldn't hurt to try it.    Sounds like that's the most convenient machine for you to test it on.

 

It's apparent that the drive is not dead. So it should be recognized on the server.

XP won't see the drive because it's > 2TB, but I THINK Data Lifeguard will still work fine with it, even on XP ... not certain, but wouldn't hurt to try it.    Sounds like that's the most convenient machine for you to test it on.

 

I'll give this a shot.

 

It's apparent that the drive is not dead. So it should be recognized on the server.

 

I figured the same thing. I'm about to give it another try in the server.

 

If I'm remember correctly, all I do is pull the old parity, put the new one in and start the server. It then gives me the option to select the new drive as the parity. Weird the current 4tb drive went without a hitch.

 

It's a WD 60EFRX drive - if that means anything. The 4tb is the same drive, so in my mind should work! Don't figure!

 

 

You need to Stop the array;  unassign the old parity drive;  Start the array ... so parity is shown as "missing";  Stop the array (you can shut it down at this point if you need to physically switch the drives);  then assign the new drive as parity; and then Start the array so it will update to the new parity drive.

 

You need to Stop the array;  unassign the old parity drive;  Start the array ... so parity is shown as "missing";  Stop the array (you can shut it down at this point if you need to physically switch the drives);  then assign the new drive as parity; and then Start the array so it will update to the new parity drive.

 

I don't remember doing it this way before - even thought the parity update to 4tb wasn't that long ago. Perhaps that is my mistake. I certainly didn't do it this way this time. I thought I just had to take the old one out and put the new one it and the system (unraid) would recognise the change and ask me to assign the new one as the new parity.

 

What I don't understand is why the log doesn't show the new drive?

Another thought on this subject...when I unassign the parity that invalidates the parity info, so how do I use this drive to rebuild a HDD if it fails during re-sync of the new parity? Thx

My replacement WD Red 6Tb drive went in today and parity is re-syncing as I type. I'm real please the system recognised the new 6Tb drive. Now all I need to do is wait to 30+ hours it'll take, then run a parity check at the end of it.

 

Thank you all for the assistance. I'll mark this post as solved.

Glad all's well now.    Just 60 hours or so for the parity sync and subsequent check to finish