Repartitioning a cache drive

[GeekVerve]

While researching options for my unRAID build, I decided to throw together a test box with a couple 160GB laptop drives, a 74GB WD Raptor and a Kingston 64GB SSD. I've got 1-160GB drive set as parity, the other 160 and the 74 as storage and the SSD as cache. I'm currently waiting on the parity sync to complete.

 

The problem is that the SSD used to be the OS drive in a Xen test server. I didn't reformat it or anything, before putting in this box, and unRAID is showing it with a 4GB capacity. I reformatted it in unRAID, but it didn't repartition it in the process. What's the easiest way to get it repartitioned to its full capacity? I guess I could just pull it out and do in on my Windows machine, but I was wondering if there was an option to do so within the unRAID GUI that I was missing.

 

Using unRAID 6.2.0-r3, btw.

 

[John_M]

Since you're using unRAID 6.2 I'd download the Beta Preclear plugin and use it to pre-clear your cache disk - stop the array and unallocate it first. Basically, it writes zeroes all over the disk and it will destroy any partitioning you have left over from its previous use.

[GeekVerve]

Since you're using unRAID 6.2 I'd download the Beta Preclear plugin and use it to pre-clear your cache disk - stop the array and unallocate it first. Basically, it writes zeroes all over the disk and it will destroy any partitioning you have left over from its previous use.

 

Excellent! That did the trick. Plus, now I have a means of preclearing future drives from within the unRAID GUI. Thanks!

 

[BartDG]

Reviving an old thread here. 

 

I have the same problem.  Popped an older 1TB NVMe drive from my old PC into my Unraid server and want to use it as a cache drive.  I formatted it, but forgot to delete the partition, so I need to be able to either remove the partition or repartition it. 

 

I wanted to try this solution, but the Beta Preclear plugin doens't seem to exist any more.  I've found the "Unassigned Devices Preclear" app, installed it, but it doen't find the drive, even though it's under "unassigned devices".  I've now mounted it, but it still doesn't find it.  See below.

 

 

What can I do to preclear this drive?  Or remove its partitions in a different manner?

If all else fails, I guess I could pull the drive from the Unraid server again, but that's kind of a hassle since it's not easily accessible, so I'd like to use that as a "last resort" kind of option.

 

Thanks!

[JorgeB]

1 minute ago, BartDG said:

What can I do to preclear this drive?

Don't preclear flash devices, to wipe it run

blkdiscard -f /dev/nvme0n1

 

[BartDG]

That did it!  Thanks!