January 17, 201610 yr The web interface to my server began responding very slowly, so I stopped my array and rebooted. At least I tried. My server didn't boot back up. When I went to check on it, there was that unmistakable click.click.click.click coming from one of the drives. This is the first drive I've had fail in my servers (and it's been running for years). I've already ordered two replacement drives, but I'm hoping someone can hold my hand and tell me what to do next. Once I got it booted up, here's what my dashboard looks like. Is this normal for a failed drive? I'm worried about the Parity status showing "Data is Invalid." Is that the normal error when a disk fails? As I understand it, I'm supposed to shut down the server, remove the failed drive, and put in the new one. And then rebuild the array. I'm not exactly sure how to do that last step, but I'm hoping it will be fairly obvious once I put in the new disk. I generally preclear my disks, but in this instance I'm guessing I just need to put the disk in and let unRAID handle clearing it when it rebuilds the array, correct? Sorry for all the questions, and thanks in advance for the help!
January 17, 201610 yr Community Expert unRAID will not clear the replacement disk. A disk is only required to be clear when it is added to a new slot in a parity protected array. This is so parity will remain valid. A rebuild is going to completely write the disk anyway so that should be a pretty good test. You might just check the SMART and do a parity check when it finishes the rebuild. When you replace a disk the array will be stopped. You assign the new disk to the same slot and unRAID will say that starting the array will start the rebuild. That's all there is to it. No clearing and definitely no formatting.
January 17, 201610 yr Author Thanks for the reply! So the "Data Invalid" error is normal? Thanks again!
January 20, 201610 yr Author New drive is in. After a bit of a scare where the web interface stopped responding for about 10 minutes, it now says it's rebuilding. I won't claim victory until it's finished
January 20, 201610 yr Yes, what your drive did was a quick check and it should be restoring data bit by bit of what was on your old drive. Depending on the size of your Parity drive and your system build it could take hours. If I recall it took aprox 5 or 6 hours to rebuild a 2TB when mine decided it didn't want to play anymore. My machine is a bit older and I'm using Green drives so it takes its sweet time. Lol Normally its highly advised to run Pre-clears on your drives, but since you have a spare you have time to take care of that as added insurance if this happens again. As well welcome to the Freaked.out.OMYGosh.I.was.nervous club. I'm not only a Greeter I'm a member too.
January 20, 201610 yr As well welcome to the Freaked.out.OMYGosh.I.was.nervous club. I'm not only a Greeter I'm a member too. That time between "It's supposed to be able to do this, but will it work like it's supposed to..." and "It worked." is pretty rough.
January 20, 201610 yr Author ........ As well welcome to the Freaked.out.OMYGosh.I.was.nervous club. I'm not only a Greeter I'm a member too. That time between "It's supposed to be able to do this, but will it work like it's supposed to..." and "It worked." is pretty rough. Yes and yes!!! I keep telling myself this is what unRAID is for.... it still hasn't made me feel any better. I'm trying to cruise around on the forum here to keep from hitting refresh repeatedly on my server interface.
January 20, 201610 yr Thanks for the reply! So the "Data Invalid" error is normal? Thanks again! Yes, it is normal and it's very misleading, IMO. When a disk fails you're relying on parity to rebuild it so seeing that message is not exactly reassuring. I suppose, strictly speaking, it's not incorrect because losing a disk from the array means that the parity is no longer consistent with what remains of the array, but that doesn't help the user and it could be worded better.
January 21, 201610 yr Author My array appears to have been successfully rebuilt from parity. I woke up this morning to all green disk status. Running a parity check now. I'm actually starting to feel better
January 21, 201610 yr Congrats. I'm going to label this as Solved. Please feel free to change the topic title if it isn't.
January 21, 201610 yr Author I was waiting on the parity check to finish, but it would probably be best to start another thread if something went south at this point Thanks for the help!
January 22, 201610 yr Author Crisis averted! Parity check complete, with zero errors. I wasn't worried for a minute Thanks agains for the help! Now I think I'll go ahead and preclear that extra drive I bought.
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