Clicking Drive - How to figure out which one?

[krackato]

I'm pretty sure one of my drives in clicking in my unRAID server.

 

1. How do I figure out which drive is clicking? I can hear a drive clicking, which I've read means that it's probably going to die soon and I should replace it. But unRAID tells me the S.M.A.R.T. status of all my drives is okay.

 

2. Do I just wait for the drive to die?

 

3. What steps do I take if I can identify the clicking drive? I'm assuming I take out the offending drive, install a new drive, and then... do something or press some button so that unRAID rebuilds the lost data.

 

4. How long would unRAID take to rebuild a 2TB drive?

[garycase]

Identifying which drive can be a bit tedious when there's no indication in the SMART data.

 

I'd do the following:

 

=>  Enable disk shares (if not already enabled) so you can "see" the individual drives via Windows Explorer when you browse your server.

 

=>  Click on "Spin Down" to force all drives to spin down.

 

=>  In Windows Explorer, double-click on Disk1 to browse its contents; then copy a file (ANY file) to your Windows box over the network.    This will force Disk1 to spin up for the copy.    While it's busy copying the file, see if you can hear the "clicking" sound you've noted.

 

=>  If you heard the clicking, you've found the disk.    If not, repeat the Spin Down; then do it again with Disk2.  Etc.  You should eventually identify which disk was doing the clicking.

 

=>  If you do ALL of your data disks and never hear a clicking sound; then do another Spin Down, and this time WRITE a file to one of your disks (doesn't matter which one).    If you NOW hear the clicking sound, then the disk doing it must be your parity disk.  If you by chance have dual parity, you'll need to spin then up one-at-a-time to see if you can isolate which one is "clicking".    You can do this on the Main page by first doing a "Spin Down" to ensure all drives are spun down;  then clicking on the disk name (in the "Device" column); and then clicking 'Spin Up" for just that disk.    Note certain the clicking will occur without activity on the disk ... but it probably will.    [You could actually use this technique for all of the disks -- but I think doing a copy is a better way to force the clicking, since the disk will be active and not just spinning.]

 

 

[JonathanM]

I'm pretty sure one of my drives in clicking in my unRAID server.

Another cause of clicking besides outright failure is power flakiness. Either a loose connection, or simply an overloaded PSU. If that is the case, then repeated partial power cycling of the drive will probably eventually cause a drive failure, but it wasn't the drive's fault.

 

If you can narrow it down to a single drive, then very carefully check all the power connections to that drive. If it seems to be multiple drives, I'd try a new PSU.

[trurl]

Google "screwdriver stethoscope".