Hello

This is my current situation: 

- The 2TB disk on the bottom failed and now realy is the time to get two new drives. Cant I just remove disk 12 from the array and let unraid move the data to the other disks?
- I'm probably going to get two Seagate IronWolf 10TB disks and place one of them as parity. If I cant do the above how can I replace the parity without loosing my data?

Thanks for any help!

You need to be very careful as disk12 data is at risk.

 

When a disk fails, that disk is simulated by all other disks + parity. If you lose another disk now, you'd loose the data on the other disk + the data on disk12.

 

The first thing I would consider is do you have 1.5T of unused space on another computer. That is how much data is being simulated on disk12. If you did, I would suggest copying it from the simulated disk12 to that location for safe keeping.

 

You could also copy the 1.5T onto the other array disks. Looks like you have about 500G on 3 disks, about 200G-300G on the rest. It is doable. But the copying will be slow going as every disk will be involved in every read (simulating), and then the target disk will need to write as well as parity. Its also going to put a lot of stress on the other drives. If they are shaky, I'd not recommend it. (You might want to post a diagnostics file so we could see the condition of the other disks).

 

If you had your 2 new 10Ts precleared and ready, what I would do is to boot a trial key to let unRAID partition and format one of the disks. You just need to add that 1 disk to a virgin array, start the "array", and tell unRAID to format the disk. Now you can shutdown and reboot your real stick and mount the 10T drive via unassigned devices. And then copy the data from the simulated disk12 to this unassigned disk. (Note that the unassigned devices plugin does have an ability to partition and format disks, but it does not do it the way unRAID does, and you'd be unable to add it to an array later. The goals here is to copy some data to it outside the array and then define it to be inside the array later.). Note if there are any marginal disks in your array, you could also copy the data from them to the 10T disk at this time.

 

Once the data is copied over, you can do a new config and install your newly precleared 10T parity, your new 10T drive we just loaded with the data from disk12, and all your data disks 1-11 into a newly configured array. (You can also add the current parity as another data disk if you'd like.) Exclude any problematic disks that you copied their data to the 10T disks above. Start the array and let unRAID build parity.

Put in an older 2TB disk and moving all data from disk12 to that.

 

Cant I just get rid of that disk12 after I saved my data? Just so the array can operate normaly again. My new 10TB disks will arrive tomorow....

10TB... hopefully not a 4kn-Disk because incompatible with unRAID...

This scenario is exactly what the Parity Swap procedure was made for, but I will not give a link or make any further recommendations without diagnostics so we can have some idea of the health of all your other drives.

 

Tools - Diagnostics, post complete zip.

 

And, we will need to know

20 minutes ago, Zonediver said:

10TB... hopefully not a 4kn-Disk because incompatible with unRAID...

 

21 minutes ago, Zonediver said:

10TB... hopefully not a 4kn-Disk because incompatible with unRAID...

 

AFAIK Ironwolfs are all 512e

33 minutes ago, trurl said:

This scenario is exactly what the Parity Swap procedure was made for, but I will not give a link or make any further recommendations without diagnostics so we can have some idea of the health of all your other drives.

 

Tools - Diagnostics, post complete zip.

 

And, we will need to know

 

 

Parity swap is "ok" for upsizing, but I do not like it for failed disk scenarios. I like to copy the data to "solid ground" as quickly and gently as possible, especially with unknown disk conditions on the remaining disks in the array.

 

But even for upsizing, I like my method better. I don't think I've ever done the parity swap. Copying the data has the benefit of defragmenting the disk. And often when upsizing I am doing a lot of reorging and it gives me a lot more flexibility in terms of what I copy / move where. I can also do integrity checks to confirm all the data is copied correctly.

 

 

I don't like to proceed with anything without having some trust in all the other disks, since at this point all the other disks are critical to accessing the data for the failed disk. So we really need those diagnostics.

 

Probably the first question we should have asked is whether there are any backups. You must copy any critical data from that simulated disk onto another system if there are no backups.

 

This absolutely will not work:

2 hours ago, In0cenT said:

Cant I just remove disk 12 from the array and let unraid move the data to the other disks?

unRAID is not going to move anything, and the only way to get it to remove disk12 is to make it forget all about disk12 (and its data) and rebuild parity instead of disk12.

 

And I don't like the idea of copying the data from the simulated disk to other disks in the array for the same reason bjp999 gave:

2 hours ago, bjp999 said:

But the copying will be slow going as every disk will be involved in every read (simulating), and then the target disk will need to write as well as parity. Its also going to put a lot of stress on the other drives. If they are shaky, I'd not recommend it. (You might want to post a diagnostics file so we could see the condition of the other disks).

 

 

14 minutes ago, bjp999 said:

Parity swap is "ok" for upsizing, but I do not like it for failed disk scenarios. I like to copy the data to "solid ground" as quickly and gently as possible, especially with unknown disk conditions on the remaining disks in the array.

 

But even for upsizing, I like my method better. I don't think I've ever done the parity swap. Copying the data has the benefit of defragmenting the disk. And often when upsizing I am doing a lot of reorging and it gives me a lot more flexibility in terms of what I copy / move where. I can also do integrity checks to confirm all the data is copied correctly.

I've never done parity swap either, but if it were just a case of upsizing with no failure involved, then there would be no reason to parity swap, since you could just upsize parity, then reuse parity to replace another drive if you wanted.

2 hours ago, In0cenT said:

Put in an older 2TB disk and moving all data from disk12 to that.

 

Cant I just get rid of that disk12 after I saved my data? Just so the array can operate normaly again. My new 10TB disks will arrive tomorow....

 

Did you replace the disk and let unRAID perform a disk rebuild?

 

Or did you add the new 2T to unassigned devices and copy the data there?

 

If you let unRAID perform the rebuild - you'd be all set. The array would be protected.

PS - still recommend you post the diagnostics file.

3 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

 

AFAIK Ironwolfs are all 512e

seen forum posts that 10TB SeaWolf were working. hope its the same for me...

Sorry been working on my Ducati thats why its taken me some time. Still moving data to my unasigned disk to save data.

 

 

Thanks for all your help!

nas-diagnostics-20170419-1252.zip

    [disk12] => Array
        (
            [idx] => 12
            [name] => disk12
            [device] => sdc
            [id] => WDC_WD20EFRX-68AX9N0_WD-WMC302076758
            [rotational] => 1
            [size] => 1953514552
            [status] => DISK_DSBL

SMART for all disks, including disk12, looks OK. Connection issues are much more common than drive issues. If you had posted your diagnostics earlier we might have saved you from spending money on another disk.

 

Do you have backups of any critical files on this or any other disk?

 

Go ahead and finish copying the data to your Unassigned Disk. After that, I think I would just rebuild disk12 to itself.

 

Since your screenshot shows disk12 Not installed, it should just be a matter of shutting down, checking all connections, rebooting, stopping the array, reassigning the disk, and starting the array to rebuild.

 

Then after the array is protected again you could think about upsizing with the new disks.

 

 

 

Started rebuilding the array posted an other diagnostics after I started the rebuild.

The 10TB disks were needed anyways dont like to stay on low storage

nas-diagnostics-20170419-1949.zip

 
AFAIK Ironwolfs are all 512e

They also have 4Kn versions of Ironwolf.
(If not mistaking the pro versions have a lot more annual R/W they can handle....I would go Pro for that reason...could last couple more years that way)
They also come with data rescue. (However I doubt you will be using that)

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

1 minute ago, JimDijkstra86NL said:

They also have 4Kn versions of Ironwolf.
(If not mistaking the pro versions have a lot more annual R/W they can handle....I would go Pro for that reason...could last couple more years that way)
They also come with data rescue. (However I doubt you will be using that)

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 

 

Do you mind posting a link to those models? All I can find are 512E.

ironwolf-pro-ds-1914-1-1611gb.pdf

2 minutes ago, JimDijkstra86NL said:

They also have 4Kn versions of Ironwolf.
(If not mistaking the pro versions have a lot more annual R/W they can handle....I would go Pro for that reason...could last couple more years that way)
They also come with data rescue. (However I doubt you will be using that)

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 

So I wont know before if the disks will work? Why would they build two different models? (4Kn vs 512e)

2 minutes ago, In0cenT said:

So I wont know before if the disks will work? Why would they build two different models? (4Kn vs 512e)

 

I'm pretty sure there are only 512E variants, but these are for sure 512E and will work with current unRAID:

 

10TB Ironwolf: ST10000VN0004

10TB Ironwolf Pro: ST10000NE0004

 

If there are 4kn variants they will have a different p/n.

 
I'm pretty sure there are only 512E variants, but these are for sure 512E and will work with current unRAID:
 
10TB Ironwolf: ST10000VN0004
10TB Ironwolf Pro: ST10000NE0004
 
If there are 4kn variants they will have a different p/n.

Correct,...gotta say and admit.
I viewed over 150 part numbers they other day when researching it all.
And I ain't as young f mind for a majority of the time.
Could be off, I visit up to 1500 pages per domain a week and reading all I can.

Hence can't easily re-connect the data....maybe it's the mind comparing and mixing up the Iron wolf series with the simular series of WD. (I so...sry!, PS I am sure I seen at least 3 up to 6/8 models listed for the Iron wolf (pro) series)...so presumably a few of those where 4Kn versions)

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

The array is working fine again with the "failed" drive.

Also added my two new 10TB drives and preclearing them at the moment
Thanks for all your help!

If the policies allow and there is any performance improvement.
Please place some benchmark results.

Thanks in advance. (Will be getting at least 1x 6, 8, 10 or 12TB drive in next 12 months or so..Probably a performance pro or enterprise version)

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk