Noticed that one of my drives started reporting errors from the "Main" tab on unRAID's GUI. But if I go to the dashboard, the drive isn't marked as faulty. I viewed the SMART attributes of the drive, but then realized that I don't really know what they mean! I've attached them here, so hopefully someone can help me interpret these?

 

 

Secondly - What is the procedure for changing drives if I would need to? Can I hot-swap HDD's if I have compatible hardware or must I restart?

 

Also - Can I have a "Hot-Spare" that replaces any bad drives without me doing anything?

 

Any advice is appreciated!

 

-Stop the array

-Shutdown

-Replace the drive with a new one (preferably precleared or thoroughly tested in some other way)

-Boot up. unRAID will say the drive is missing and won't start the array.

-Assign the new disk to the slot the old disk was in. unRAID will let you start and begin rebuilding the data to the new disk.

 

You might be able to get the pending reallocated with a preclear, but with that many already reallocated and more pending I would probably not use it in my server again.

 

Hot swap may or may not work consistently even if your hardware claims to support it.

 

You can keep a hot spare in the server but you will have to assign it yourself when you want it to replace another drive.

"Assign the new disk to the slot the old disk was in"

 

Not to be dumb - but where will this option be lol?

 

Also - I've got another disk that is failing SMART parameters, but isn't reporting errors. Should I replace it as well? Can I replace two drives at one time?

It's visible in the drop down assignment menu for that slot, which is only available when the array is stopped.

 

If you have only one parity disk you can only replace one disk at a time. If you have two parity disks (which implies you must be using unRAID 6.2, currently in beta release) you could in theory remove two disks at the same time but it isn't recommended if you can avoid it.

Go ahead and post your complete diagnostics zip in case there is anything else we don't know about that might make a difference in how to proceed.

Update - Replacing the drive went as smooth as butter. Thanks for the help!

 

Any news on when the dual-parity will be making its way out of beta?

 

Also - any way to mark this thread resolved?

Any news on when the dual-parity will be making its way out of beta?

Some time in the next few years.  I have the beta on almost all of my servers now anyway.  Don't believe the sig as I will update it when I have my reconfiguration done.