I experienced a power loss this morning, and when I went to restart my raid several hours later I noticed the parity drive color is blue and the message "Start will bring the array on-line and start Parity-Sync." appeared.  My understanding is UnRAID thinks the parity drive is new so it is going to rebuild the parity-sync. Is this accurate? This seems risky and rebuilding the entire cache is not desired obviously. Are there any other options?

 

It would be normal for it to do an automatic parity CHECK after an "unclean" shutdown (i.e. if you didn't gracefully shut down the array).    This is why most of us use UPS's, so a power outage doesn't cause an instantaneous "dirty" shutdown.

 

However, it's NOT normal for it to do a new parity SYNC.    Had you not completed the original parity sync before the power outage?

 

... Note that it won't hurt anything to do the parity sync, providing the disk assignments are correct.

 

If you have ANY doubts about that being the case, then you should do a New Config and ONLY assign your data disks to the array => then confirm you can see your files okay (i.e. that you've assigned the correct disks as data drives) ... and THEN assign the parity drive and start the parity sync.

 

... and buy a UPS 

However, it's NOT normal for it to do a new parity SYNC.    Had you not completed the original parity sync before the power outage?

 

I had completed a parity sync; its been running solid for a few years.

 

do a New Config and ONLY assign your data disks to the array => then confirm you can see your files okay

 

Whats the best way to do a new config?

 

Thanks!

Whats the best way to do a new config?

 

In v5 go to the Utils tab and select New Config.