Hello,

 

I am trying to add a brand new WD 8TB Red to my data disks, and when I click the format option in the unraid ui, it goes completely unresponsive. I figured it would take a while due to the huge disk and went to bed and when I woke up it still was in that state. I do not see any disk activity on the led for the drive either.

 

Is this normal and I just need to leAve it alone? 

 

Edit: This is for a drive replacement. Nothing is wrong with the old drive, I am just upgrading it to a new bigger drive

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by destrugter

First thing.  Post up a diagnostics file     'Tools'   >>>   'Diagnostics'

 

Second thing.  Did you preclear it it first or just put into your array after removing it from its packing?

 

I'll post a diagnostic file later when I get home, but to answer your 2nd question I did not preclear it, it went straight into the array.

 

Edit: The only way I can get a diagnostic file though is by powering down and interrupting the process if it's doing anything

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by destrugter

25 minutes ago, destrugter said:

I'll post a diagnostic file later when I get home, but to answer your 2nd question I did not preclear it, it went straight into the array.

 

When you add a new drive to the array. The first thing unRAID wants to do is a "clear" action. Once the drive is cleared it will ask you to format it.

 

Did the drive clear action finish? If yes, you can set a specific file-system instead of the default "auto" setting (XFS is preferred) and retry the drive format procedure.

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by bonienl

4 minutes ago, bonienl said:

 

When you add a new drive to the array. The first thing unRAID wants to do is a "clear" action. Once the drive is cleared it will ask you to format it.

 

Did the drive clear action finish? If yes, you can set a specific file-system instead of the default "auto" setting (XFS is preferred) and retry the drive format procedure.

 

I didn't see a clear action. I followed the instructions to replace a data drive and when I start the array with the new disk, it starts to rebuild parity. At this point it says the disk is unmount able and presents me with an option to format so I stopped the parity rebuild and checked the box to format and then click the format button and the entire UI becomes unresponsive, and in fact the page fails to load.

Did you use this disk to replace a current data disk in the array or did you add it as an additional disk to the array (thus increasing the number of data disks by one)?

Just now, Frank1940 said:

Did you use this disk to replace a current data disk in the array or did you add it as an additional disk to the array (thus increasing the number of data disks by one)?

 

I am replacing an old disk with this disk

4 minutes ago, destrugter said:

 

I didn't see a clear action. I followed the instructions to replace a data drive and when I start the array with the new disk, it starts to rebuild parity. At this point it says the disk is unmount able and presents me with an option to format so I stopped the parity rebuild and checked the box to format and then click the format button and the entire UI becomes unresponsive, and in fact the page fails to load.

 

Replacing an existing drive with a new (bigger) drive isn't the same thing as adding a new drive to the array (extending the array). My understanding from your first post was that you extended the array.

 

With a drive replacement it will indeed to a disk rebuild. I assume your parity disk is also 8TB otherwise the rebuild is never successful. Anyway there is no format procedure required when replacing a disk.

 

The correct procedure to replace a disk is:

 

1. Stop the array

2. Remove the existing disk (you may need to power-off your system to do this)

3. Insert the new disk (and power-on your system if needed)

4. Select the new disk in the slot position of the old disk

5. Let unRAID do the disk rebuild

6. Once the rebuild is finished, your array is in operational state with all disks available

 

 

And formatting is never a part of a disk replacement, if the disk was unmountable there were filesystem issues, formatting deletes all data on that disk, you'll need to use the old disk (if readable) to recover data.

16 minutes ago, bonienl said:

 

Replacing an existing drive with a new (bigger) drive isn't the same thing as adding a new drive to the array (extending the array). My understanding from your first post was that you extended the array.

 

With a drive replacement it will indeed to a disk rebuild. I assume your parity disk is also 8TB otherwise the rebuild is never successful. Anyway there is no format procedure required when replacing a disk.

 

The correct procedure to replace a disk is:

 

1. Stop the array

2. Remove the existing disk (you may need to power-off your system to do this)

3. Insert the new disk (and power-on your system if needed)

4. Select the new disk in the slot position of the old disk

5. Let unRAID do the disk rebuild

6. Once the rebuild is finished, your array is in operational state with all disks available

 

 

 

I followed that. When I start unraid it shows a blue square next to the 8tb drive indicating a new device. I start the array and it starts doing a parity rebuild, but says the disk is unmountable. That's when I saw and tried the format option.

 

I will edit the original post to indicate this is and disk replacement

 

EDIT:

So it sounds like what I should do is remove both the old and new devices, let parity rebuild, add the 8TB disk as a new disk, then copy the data from the old disk to the new disk?

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by destrugter

Personally I would never add a drive as a replacement or new without thoroughly testing it first.  Many use preclear plugin to do that (myself included) but the actual pre-clearing is no longer necessary any more since unRAID now handles that while the array remains available.  Others may use the manufacturers diagnostic application which should also give it a good testing.

Edited July 26, 20178 yr by BobPhoenix