Preclear.sh results - Questions about your results? Post them here.


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Ok great now I am going to upgrade to 4.7 and replace the suspect drive. Wish me luck! Please god don't let me mess this up :)

take a screen shot of your config page and save a copy of your config folder and all its contents after you stop the array, but before you upgrade. rename the existing bzroot and bzimage files to bzroot.46 and bzimage.46, so it you need to revert it is as easy as re-naming them back and rebooting.
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I posed this question before and I Was looking for the reference.  Thank goodness I don't upgrade often enough to remember.  By config page do you mean my devices?

 

So is realy 4.7 just those two files you have me renaming?  I just want to make sure I don't screw this up.  Currently I am at 4.5 so I don't know if that will make a difference...

 

Neil

 

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I posed this question before and I Was looking for the reference.  Thank goodness I don't upgrade often enough to remember.  By config page do you mean my devices?

 

So is realy 4.7 just those two files you have me renaming?  I just want to make sure I don't screw this up.  Currently I am at 4.5 so I don't know if that will make a difference...

 

Neil

 

The upgrade instructions are in the announcement thread, basically yes, but there is also a newer version of the memory test file to copy in place, so three files in total for you:

 

Upgrading an existing Flash Device

----------------------------------

 

Note: after upgrading, some changes may require additional user intervention, please refer to the Change Log below.

 

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.6 or higher, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:

    bzimage

    bzroot

 

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.5.x, 4.4.x, 4.3.x or 4.2.x, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:

    bzimage

    bzroot

    memtest

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Just finished preclearing my first build. I think everything went OK but I hope someone with more experience will check my log and let me know. The only thing that I noticed was some "near_threshold". Are they anything to worry about?

 

Also, when I do "dmesg|grep SATA|grep link" I get:

 

ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

ata3: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)

ata4: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)

ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)

 

I left ata1 on mobo open for future cache, but why is ata2 1.5Gbps?

 

Near threshold is just an alert.  I think I print that whenever the current value is within 75 of the failure threshold.

For some disks/attributes, the factory initialized value is only a few counts, and sometimes only 1 greater than the affiliated failure threshold so the warning is always going to occur even though nothing at all is wrong.

 

Joe L.

Thanks

 

Any idea about my SATA link numbers? All of these are on the mobo. I just used some cables I already had. Could the cables be the reason for 1.5Gbps?

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I posed this question before and I Was looking for the reference.  Thank goodness I don't upgrade often enough to remember.  By config page do you mean my devices?

 

So is realy 4.7 just those two files you have me renaming?  I just want to make sure I don't screw this up.  Currently I am at 4.5 so I don't know if that will make a difference...

 

Neil

 

The upgrade instructions are in the announcement thread, basically yes, but there is also a newer version of the memory test file to copy in place, so three files in total for you:

 

Upgrading an existing Flash Device

----------------------------------

 

Note: after upgrading, some changes may require additional user intervention, please refer to the Change Log below.

 

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.6 or higher, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:

    bzimage

    bzroot

 

If you are currently running unRAID Server 4.5.x, 4.4.x, 4.3.x or 4.2.x, please copy the following files from the new release to the root of your Flash device:

    bzimage

    bzroot

    memtest

 

Interestingly enough I had a bzroot.456 and a bzimage.456 turns out I did upgrade this server from 4.5 to 4.6 so I just copied the two files over after renaming the old ones.  Also for good measure I copied the entire usb drive to a directory on my server.

 

Going to reboot and sacrifice a lamb (just kidding about the last part)

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I just precleared an old Maxtor 200GB drive that passed and tried to mount it as the cache drive, but surprisingly the drive shows up as unformatted when I started the array. Drive is sde. Seems like there's a filesystem problem?

 

I've attached the syslog start from when I started the array, and the SMART report posted after preclear was finished, which looks fine to me...

 

Clicking on the cache drive, it shows this, which suggests it should be formatted (I'm assuming):

Partition format: MBR: 4K-aligned (factory-erased)

 

What should I do now? Thanks.

syslog.txt

smart.txt

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Thank you Joe L. for an outstanding script - using a second computer as a test box/clearing server makes adding new drives to unRAID an absolute breeze.

 

Yesterday I added a new Hitachi 5K3000 drive to my system (upgraded a WD Caviar Black 1.5TB) - everything went smoothly as usual.  I then used the Preclear script to clear the WD Caviar Black, and ended up with a report that highlighted the Spin_Up_Time attribute (something I've never seen highlighted in a preclear report before):

 

=========================================================

** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sda  /tmp/smart_finish_sda

ATTRIBUTE  NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE

Spin_Up_Time =    40      40          21        near_thresh 15000

Seek_Error_Rate =  100    200            0        ok          0

Temperature_Celsius =  117    132            0        ok          35

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,

    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.

0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

=======================================================

 

The report shows no issues with sector re-allocation - but appears to show the Spin_Up_Time attribute to be near the threshold.  I searched in the forum and on Google but didn't find much information on whether this result should be of concern.  I read somewhere that this could be the result of the power supply - but the server I cleared the drive on is healthy.

 

Should I be concerned about the longevity of the drive itself?

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ended up with a report that highlighted the Spin_Up_Time attribute (something I've never seen highlighted in a preclear report before):

The spin-up-time is only being listed because the current value is within 25 of its affiliated failure threshold.  I've sen other disks where the failure threshold is 99 and the current value is 100.  They too will have the attribute listed, even though nothing at all is wrong. 

 

If we do not know the starting "current" value for spin-up-time when the disk left the factory we'll not know if the current value is indicating it is taking longer to spin up, or acting perfectly normal.

 

Best advice I can give is to compare that SMART attribute with other disks of the exact same manufacturer/make/model.  If their current value is 100, or 200, then your disk might be taking longer than usual.  Otherwise, just keep an eye on it by running an occasional SMART report on it.

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Thank you Joe L. and prostuff1 for you replies and assistance - greatly appreciated.  I will definitely keep an eye on this drive - and will compare the results to the other two drives that I have (same WD Caviar Black 1.5TB). 

 

Before the most recent version(s) of the Preclear script I used to use my cell phone to capture the results.  I will take a look at these to see if there has been any change with the Spin_Up_Time attribute as when I first cleared the drive.

 

Good to know this one isn't on the fritz - at least I hope so  ;).

 

Thank you both again for your time and assistance!

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Was running preclear on a Hitachi 5K3000 drive, in a Rosewill external enclosure, via e-sata, under 5.0b6a when it quit with the following message:

malloc: unwind_prot.c:249: assertion botched

free: underflow detected; mh_nbytes out of range

Aborting...Aborted

 

Any ideas as to the problem??

 

Thanks

syslog.txt

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Was running preclear on a Hitachi 5K3000 drive, in a Rosewill external enclosure, via e-sata, under 5.0b6a when it quit with the following message:

malloc: unwind_prot.c:249: assertion botched

free: underflow detected; mh_nbytes out of range

Aborting...Aborted

 

Any ideas as to the problem??

 

Thanks

 

malloc is a routine that allocates memory.  Odds are you either ran out of free memory, or, you have some defective memory, or you used some parameters that asked it to allocate more memory than you have, or, the driver for your disk is buggy and did not free memory as it should have.

 

Joe L.

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Hello everyone!

 

I have 3 disks that I precleared over the last few days, which will the first entries into my new array (neither have yet done anything other then be precleared). Unfortunately, I think I screwed it up some.

 

2 disks are random ones I had extra, and I ran the command as normal. No problems.

 

1 disk is a new WD20EARS (they all will be when I'm doing this for realz) and I did the -a flag to toggle advanced format. This went through with no problems. However, my friend told me that I did it wrong, and that it should have been -A (in caps) and not -a in lowecase.

 

1.) Is this true, and what did I mess up - something about the partition?

2.) What's the best way to fix this? Do I need to preclear again?

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1 disk is a new WD20EARS (they all will be when I'm doing this for realz) and I did the -a flag to toggle advanced format. This went through with no problems. However, my friend told me that I did it wrong, and that it should have been -A (in caps) and not -a in lowecase.

 

1.) Is this true, and what did I mess up - something about the partition?

2.) What's the best way to fix this? Do I need to preclear again?

What version of pre-clear were you using?

IIRC the pre-clear dialog states:

-a option elected, partition will start on sector 63)

(it will not be 4k-aligned)

Are you absolutely sure you want to clear this drive?

(Answer Yes to continue. Capital 'Y', lower case 'es'): Yes

Clearing will NOT be performed

 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.msg23246#msg23246

1.  True.

-a = force MBR-unaligned.

-A = force starting sector to be on sector 64 for 4k alignment.

 

 

 

2. Note:  The -A is not required if you have the "MBR-4K Aligned" set as default in your device settings.  Any drive can be formatted to start on sector 64

Also, there is no performance or storage loss in

starting Partition 1 in sector 64 for ALL drives, not just AF drives.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=10198.0

 

I believe you can: (verify with more experienced users)

1.  Set "MBR-4K Align" in the unRAID management page

 

2. Run this command from telnet-

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX count=2

where sdX = the device for the disk being cleared.

 

This will clear the MBR of your disk.

 

Edit:

Found Joe created the preclear -z option to accomplish the same.  Can someone verify this is the correct procedure?  Thanks.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.msg102326#msg102326

 

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If the drive is currently pre-cleared, and you did not do anything to it since, and have not yet assigned it to your array, you can use:

preclear_disk.sh -C 64 /dev/sdX

to convert it from a sector 63 start (not-aligned to 4k) to a sector 64 start (4k-aligned) in just a few seconds.

(obviously, replace sdX with the correct three letter device name for your drive)

 

You can just use the pre-clear again using the "-A" option and there is no need to zero out the MBR.  The "-A" option will do that.

However, that will take 25 tp 35 hours for another cycle.

 

 

 

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Hey Joe, building my new production system SuperMicro X8SI6-F motherboard planted in a Norco 4224. Has an onboard LSI SAS2008 controller. I used preclear_disk v1.9 on (4) 80gb test drives as a first pass.

 

Commandline was "preclear_disk.sh -M 4 /dev/sdb"

 

Result:

 

Pre-Clear unRAID Disk /dev/sdb

################################################################## 1.9

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'int'

 

smartctl may not be able to run on /dev/sdb with the -d ata option.

however this should not affect the clearing of a disk.

smartctl exit status = 6

smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] (local build)

Copyright © 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

 

Smartctl: Device Read Identity Failed (not an ATA/ATAPI device)

 

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T perm

issive' options.$

Do you wish to continue?

(Answer Yes to continue. Capital 'Y', lower case 'es'):

 

Why is this happening seems like it cannot "talk" to smart, but I did the same preclear on these drives on a difference board (onboard SATA ports)

 

So i dont care about these test drives so I typed "Yes"

 

Results after 1 cycle completed:

 

========================================================================1.9

== invoked as: ./preclear_disk.sh -M 4 /dev/sdb

==   

== Disk /dev/sdb has been successfully precleared

== with a starting sector of 64

== Ran 1 cycle

==

== Using :Read block size = 8225280 Bytes

== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 0:25:03 (52 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Zeroing time  : 0:23:29 (56 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 0:47:41 (27 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Total Time    : 1:37:12

==

== Total Elapsed Time 1:37:12

==

==

============================================================================

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

 

    the number of sectors pending re-allocation did not change.

    the number of sectors re-allocated did not change.

SMART overall-health status = 

============================================================================

============================================================================

==

== S.M.A.R.T Initial Report for /dev/sdb

==

Disk: /dev/sdb

smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] (local build)

Copyright © 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

 

Smartctl: Device Read Identity Failed (not an ATA/ATAPI device)

 

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

==

============================================================================

 

 

 

============================================================================

==

== S.M.A.R.T Final Report for /dev/sdb

==

Disk: /dev/sdb

smartctl 5.40 2010-10-16 r3189 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] (local build)

Copyright © 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

 

Smartctl: Device Read Identity Failed (not an ATA/ATAPI device)

 

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

==

============================================================================

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Some disk controllers do not like the default "-d ata" argumant passed to the smartctl command.

 

The preclear_disk.sh program was unable to read the smart information therefor, that part of its output report is meaningless.

 

You might be able to type:

smartctl -a /dev/sdb

and see if it will respond.

 

If that works then you can use the "-D" option to the preclear_disk.sh script.

preclear_disk.sh -D -M 4 /dev/sdb

 

if not, you might be able to supply an alternate device type using the "-d" option:

      -D = disable "-d ata" used as argument to smartctl

      -d device_type = supply "-d device_type" to smartctl used to get device status

This is not really an issue with the preclear script, but one with the smartctl program and your disk controller.

 

Joe L.

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Hi,

 

I am running preclear 1.9 w/unraid pro 4.7, just finished preclearing a WD20EARS drive (unjumpered w/4k Alignment) after ~40 hours.  Very slow inital drive rates ~14MB/sec, but seemed to pickup near the end...

 

Results are below:

 

========================================================================1.9

== invoked as: ./preclear_disk.sh /dev/sde

==  WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0    WD-WMAZA0976314

== Disk /dev/sde has been successfully precleared

== with a starting sector of 64

== Ran 1 cycle

==

== Using :Read block size = 8225280 Bytes

== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 20:19:18 (27 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Zeroing time   : 6:16:53 (88 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 13:31:10 (41 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Total Time     : 40:09:32

==

== Total Elapsed Time 40:09:32

==

== Disk Start Temperature: 26C

==

== Current Disk Temperature: 26C,

==

============================================================================

** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sde  /tmp/smart_finish_sde

               ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE

     Raw_Read_Error_Rate =   195     200           51        ok          738

   Reallocated_Sector_Ct =   194     200          140        ok          118

         Seek_Error_Rate =   200       1            0        ok          0

 Reallocated_Event_Count =   198     200            0        ok          2

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.

33 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,

   a change of 33 in the number of sectors pending re-allocation.

0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

118 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

   a change of 118 in the number of sectors re-allocated.

============================================================================

 

 

Should I RMA the drive? or re-run preclear?  Not sure what the results are telling me.....but the re-allocation is worrying me...

 

Thanks.

 

-B

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Hi,

 

I am running preclear 1.9 w/unraid pro 4.7, just finished preclearing a WD20EARS drive (unjumpered w/4k Alignment) after ~40 hours.  Very slow inital drive rates ~14MB/sec, but seemed to pickup near the end...

 

Results are below:

 

========================================================================1.9

== invoked as: ./preclear_disk.sh /dev/sde

==  WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0    WD-WMAZA0976314

== Disk /dev/sde has been successfully precleared

== with a starting sector of 64

== Ran 1 cycle

==

== Using :Read block size = 8225280 Bytes

== Last Cycle's Pre Read Time  : 20:19:18 (27 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Zeroing time   : 6:16:53 (88 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Post Read Time : 13:31:10 (41 MB/s)

== Last Cycle's Total Time     : 40:09:32

==

== Total Elapsed Time 40:09:32

==

== Disk Start Temperature: 26C

==

== Current Disk Temperature: 26C,

==

============================================================================

** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sde  /tmp/smart_finish_sde

               ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE

     Raw_Read_Error_Rate =   195     200           51        ok          738

   Reallocated_Sector_Ct =   194     200          140        ok          118

         Seek_Error_Rate =   200       1            0        ok          0

 Reallocated_Event_Count =   198     200            0        ok          2

No SMART attributes are FAILING_NOW

 

0 sectors were pending re-allocation before the start of the preclear.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after pre-read in cycle 1 of 1.

0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 1.

33 sectors are pending re-allocation at the end of the preclear,

   a change of 33 in the number of sectors pending re-allocation.

0 sectors had been re-allocated before the start of the preclear.

118 sectors are re-allocated at the end of the preclear,

   a change of 118 in the number of sectors re-allocated.

============================================================================

 

 

Should I RMA the drive? or re-run preclear?  Not sure what the results are telling me.....but the re-allocation is worrying me...

 

Thanks.

 

-B

My vote, RMA it, especially if brand new. 

At the very least, run several more prclear cycles on it and ONLY use the drive if no additional sectors are re-allocated or marked for re-allocation.

 

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First time unRAID builder here. Basing my build on Raj's 5 drive budget box (Biostar A760G M2+ mother board) and can't get past Preclear on any of my 3 new jumperless 2TB EARS drives. All of my attempts have used the -A variable and have stalled, locking up the system after anywhere from 5 minutes to 1.5 hours. Ran Memtest overnight with 0 errors before attempting to preclear.

 

I have tried all of the drives in different channels and with different cables; same results. Bios settings are as per the first time configuration wiki:

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware_Compatibility#First_Time_Configuration.

 

Preclear version is 1.9 and unRAID is 4.7

 

If I understand things correctly I can't get a syslog containing diagnostic info if I reboot yet the only way to get the system to respond after preclear locks is to reboot.

 

Find it hard to believe that all 3 drives are so borked that I can't even get them to properly fail and generate a report... 

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