I have had my unRaid server up and running flawlessly since May 2011. The problem I have is that I don't need to work on my server on a regular basis so I forget how to do everything. I am running 4.7 on a server built by Qeegtech. I have spent the last 3-4 days reading forum posts that don't get to the point for several pages or more. It doesn't appear that their is an effort to develop documentation for people like me that only want to be a user not a developer. It has been over 30 years since I spent time using Unix command line interface. As a result I need more how to info and less bug fix discussion.

 

I have read the manuals repeatedly and with all the mixing of different releases I find myself unsure that I am interpreting the info correctly.

 

These are the problems I need to address:

A drive is disabled and I want to check it and check parity to see if I can have the system rebuild the drive or should I use an older backup to address the problem. Apparently, it hasn't checked parity for over a year. It also appears that I will be replacing drives over the coming year and I need to think about upgrading both hardware and software and enable notifications to be sent to my e-mail.

 

Current drive configuration is parity and 5 2tb Samsung data drives with 1 1tb Samsung cache drive. The system has been up continuously for over 5 years. I wouldn't know that I had a drive failure if I hadn't tried to attach a Win 10 PC to the network but that's another nightmare.

 

Is there a How To FAQ to help user like me?

 

 

Been a while since most of us have seen 4.7. Didn't it have scheduled parity checks? Most people do them monthly.

 

There can be a lot to learn. If you don't want to spend a lot of time learning it might be just as well to ask on the forum. And it might be just as well to ask on the forum anyway. We are generally very helpful.

 

See this wiki and please ask if you have any questions.

 

What do I do if I get a red ball next to a hard disk?

Thanks that is helpful. What I do not know is if I can trust parity rebuild on this drive. Is there a means to test parity before I insert a new drive?  I will check the cabling first and try to eliminate any other problems according to the troubleshooting guide.

With one of the disks disabled there's no way to test parity, but if the server was running stable, there were no sync errors on the previous parity checks and no unclean shutdowns parity should be OK.

Some thoughts in random order.

 

Are the files on that disk slot able to be read successfully despite the red ball? If so, then parity is successfully emulating that drive, and rebuilding to a new (or verified good) disk will result in you seeing the exact same files.

 

Since you are on 4.7, disk shares are probably already visible on the network, so browse to \\tower\disk? where tower is the name of your unraid server and the ? is the disk number that has the red ball.

 

 

It is possible that several of your disks are marginal or failing, so I would limit my tinkering to the minimum until you make some decisions on what you are going to upgrade. A server that old may not be the best choice for upgrading without major part changes, so why don't you start a post in general support and tell us about your current motherboard, cpu, memory, cards, drives, case, cages, psu, etc? That way we can give you helpful advice about what your best possible options to get to where you want to be.

 

 

You implied you have good backups, so hopefully even if the current situation has you backed into a corner with this box, at least your data is safe elsewhere.

 

 

Rebuilding the data without upgrading the software and possibly hardware will require a 2TB drive, which may or may not be a cost effective option. The current drive may not be bad, but without a smart report it's not easy to tell.

Thanks for everyone's help. I checked the cables everything is ok. I have started the rebuild process and it will take approximately 36 hours to complete. I will post my configuration in a day or so.

 

I think that users like myself have been dumbed down because of Windows operating system. I used to love working from  command line in DOS and Unix but when you are away from it for 25 years you lose confidence and you know that a screwup is very costly. I enjoy learning but need some clear and simplfied guides to get a firm foundation under my feet. I would certainly be happy to assist in a project to benefit noobs and other users.