New unRAID User

[hugenbdd]

• • • • Hi
        Just wanted to start this thread to keep track of my progress and get the communities input on my setup and any issues I run into.
         
        I decided to go with unRAID after having my windows machine give me issues.  I previously/currently had an Norco 2442 setup with both flexraid and drivepool.  However, I have had to many headeaches with the machine slowing down and freezing.  I even got so fed up that I setup a scheduler task to reboot the system nightly!
         
        So I decided to buy some old server hardware.  I figure it's good enough for a datacenter it should be good enough for my media.
         
        Current Setup
        
        • 2U Supermicro JBOD Server X8DT6-F 12 Bay SC826E16-R1200LPB 2x L5630 24GB RAM (ECC) LSI2008 SAS
          
        • 3x Seagate 8TB Archive Drives. (Yes I know there is some controversy on these, but have been following the threads, and they seem to be okay for media.)
          
        • SanDisk Cruzer Fit 8GB (Fits nicely on the motherboard internal USB ports.)
           
          

 

Installed and signed up for the 30 day trial.  (Will most likely buy once drives are pre-cleared - 100+ hours)

 

Ran MemTest+ for 2 hours on multi-thread.  No errors.  Plan to run for 24 hours once drives clear.

 

Plug-ins

• Preclear Plugin - with updated script
  
• wget http://bit.ly/1G44UhZ -O /boot/config/plugins/preclear.disk/preclear_disk.sh
  
• https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=39985.270
  
• Had to touch the disk.cfg as I have not created an array yet.
  
• touch /boot/config/disk.cfg
  

 

I plan to run a few other plug-in's

• IPMI tool plugin for unRAID
  
• Cache_Dirs http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=36543.0

 

Docker

I hope to run a few of the standard docker images.  But would like to make sure the system is running stable first.  Eventually plan to play with the few acd_cli (Amazon Cloud Drive) dockers that are floating around as there is not one available yet specifically for unRAID.

 

Have yet to buy an SSD for the cache drive, but plan on a Samsung 850 with around 240GB.

[trurl]

I'll let someone else comment on the hardware.

 

Just wanted to say Welcome! Looks like you've done your homework. Wish there were more like you.

[CHBMB]

I'll let someone else comment on the hardware.

 

Just wanted to say Welcome! Looks like you've done your homework. Wish there were more like you.

 

Here here...

[hugenbdd]

Well, 60 hours later and the first cycle is done.  2 more to go.

I hope I'm running the right fast pre-clear script.  But I think I just need to stick it out.

 

This might cause me to buy an additional drive, pre-clear it and put it on the shelf in case I run into issues...

 

========================================================================1.15

==

== Disk /dev/sdb has successfully finished a preclear cycle

==

== Finished Cycle 1 of 3 cycles

==

== Using read block size = 1,000,448 Bytes

== Last Cycle`s Pre Read Time : 20:09:55 (110 MB/s)

== Last Cycle`s Zeroing time : 18:12:11 (122 MB/s)

== Last Cycle`s Post Read Time : 21:54:35 (101 MB/s)

== Last Cycle`s Total Time : 60:28:09

==

== Total Elapsed Time 60:28:09

==

== Disk Start Temperature: 27C

==

== Current Disk Temperature: 27C,

==

== Starting next cycle

==

========================================================================1.15

[hernandito]

Preclearing is indeed like watching paint dry.... painful. But well forth it.

 

I do have a spare pre-cleared drive ready in case of emergency. The issue has been discussed and I think a lot of people agree with that strategy.

 

Welcome to the community.

[CHBMB]

I do have a spare pre-cleared drive ready in case of emergency. The issue has been discussed and I think a lot of people agree with that strategy.

 

I also do the same, it's an expense that you don't immediately reap the benefit of, but I've had two precleared spares now for about 6 months, one for array expansion, and one for a spare, although now one is earmarked for dual parity expansion (soon™) and the other a spare.

[SSD]

In the "fast" preclear, only the post read time is faster. Should be only a little longer than the preread time, which it is in your log, hence you are running the faster one. The regular script takes about 2x the preread time for the post read / verify step.

 

Looks like you've done your homework. Should pay off with a smooth setup process. Good luck and enjoy your array.

[hugenbdd]

Well, they have completed the pre-clear step.  Only 140 hours instead of the 180 I thought it might take. 

 

Now off to do the 48 hour Memtest.

 

 

================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdb
=               cycle 3 of 3, partition start on sector 1
=
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Disk Post-Clear-Read completed                                DONE
Disk Temperature: 28C, Elapsed Time:  140:32:18
========================================================================1.15
== ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z   Z840D0DB
== Disk /dev/sdb has been successfully precleared
== with a starting sector of 1
============================================================================
** Changed attributes in files: /tmp/smart_start_sdb  /tmp/smart_finish_sdb
                ATTRIBUTE   NEW_VAL OLD_VAL FAILURE_THRESHOLD STATUS      RAW_VALUE
      Raw_Read_Error_Rate =   109     100            6        ok          23712016
          Seek_Error_Rate =    75     100           30        ok          39164526
         Spin_Retry_Count =   100     100           97        near_thresh 0
         End-to-End_Error =   100     100           99        near_thresh 0
  Airflow_Temperature_Cel =    72      73           45        ok          28
      Temperature_Celsius =    28      27            0        ok          28
   Hardware_ECC_Recovered =   109     100            0        ok          23712016
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 3.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 1 of 3.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after post-read in cycle 1 of 3.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 2 of 3.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after post-read in cycle 2 of 3.
0 sectors were pending re-allocation after zero of disk in cycle 3 of 3.
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.
root@Tower:/usr/local/emhttp#

[hugenbdd]

48 hour Memtest passed with no errors.  On to building the array and starting to move data over.

 

I did make a small mistake and put one of my drives as cache but did not get to the format step.  Fixed that by doing Tools>New Config.

 

Started over, set my parity disk and disk1, disk2.  It formatted disk1 this time.  However, there appears to be a mis-match on the total size reported.  Not sure if that is a bug or just because it has not completed the parity check.  Total under Array Devices is correct (16.0TB) but "Total size" under Array Operation is not, 8 TB.  Image attached...

 

Thanks for any info.

[kizer]

8TB is referring to 8TB of Parity not total array size.

[hugenbdd]

Thanks Kizer.... it's not readily clear to a new user... 

 

but makes sense now that all the other info being show is about the Parity-Sync.

[kizer]

No problem my Friend. We all started new and your figuring it all out slowly. Don't be afraid to ask for help or info from anybody here. Its your Data and we all know our data is precious to us.

[hernandito]

I do believe the general consensus/recommendation is to indeed get a cache drive and on it is where you install all the docker stuff. It can be a smallish drive like 500GB... or even a smaller ssd for speed.

[hugenbdd]

Thanks Hernandito

I do have 2  240GB SSD drives.  One I plan to use for a cache drive, the other I plan to use as an accelerator drive.  i.e. put all my small files on it.  There is a thread with a mover and consolidator script.  A user by the name of NAS has already done this, and I would like to replicate it.  Once I get all my data moved over and get a chance to have the server setup like I want.

 

https://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=34434.0

 

I do think 240GB is enough for the cache as I usually only grow at most 10gb a day, and I understand that if the SSD goes, then the data left is not protected.  I'm okay with losing any data before the Mover gets to it.  Not really a big loss to me.

 

[hugenbdd]

All data moved.  Starting parity check now.  Estimated time is about 11 hours.  Hopefully it stays true to that.

 

I did want to install my SSD drives, however, they don't fit in the Supermicro trays and now I have to wait two days before amazon ships me the new trays that are specific for SSD drives....

[JorgeB]

Disk speed decreases as it goes from the outer to the inner sectors, with  8TB seagates expect ~15h for the parity check.