If I need to increase capacity of my array before Limetech provides a solution to the all drive format bug which has been seen on the forums lately.  Are either of my two solutions feasible?

 

• Unplug all the hard drives (at the SATA cable) except my new one.  Add new drive to array, format, and plug the drives back into the array
  
• Take all hard drives out of the arrays page so the only drive which is listed is my to be formated drive.
  

 

In either case I would assign the drive I'm adding to my next availabe spot (I.E. if I have five drives, I would put my additional drive in spot six).

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

Well, both of your methods would result in a loss of parity protection, which I would see as more of a risk than the 'format' bug.  I would just add the new drive by the standard method and just be extra careful anytime you see the 'format' button.  The temporary solution to the 'format' bug is to just stop and then start the array.  So my super paranoid advice is to just stop and restart the array everytime you see the format button.  Then only press the button when the correct drive (and only the correct drive) shows up as unformatted.

 

I believe that running the preclear script on your new drive also qualifies as at least a moderately paranoid step (meaning it is highly recommended).

If I need to increase capacity of my array before Limetech provides a solution to the all drive format bug which has been seen on the forums lately.  Are either of my two solutions feasible?

 

• Unplug all the hard drives (at the SATA cable) except my new one.  Add new drive to array, format, and plug the drives back into the array
  
• Take all hard drives out of the arrays page so the only drive which is listed is my to be formated drive.
  

 

In either case I would assign the drive I'm adding to my next availabe spot (I.E. if I have five drives, I would put my additional drive in spot six).

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

Your solutions would require you to then completely calculate parity.  In other words, you would lose parity protection for the time it takes to perform an initial parity calculation.

 

A super-paranoid method I might try is to assign a pre-cleared drive to an un-assigned slot in the array

 

For this example, let's use slot 5, but it could be any except the parity disk, as the parity disk is not formatted.

 

When you then start the array (by pressing "Start") disk5 should show as "un-formatted" and all the others should not show un-formatted.

 

At the linux command line you can then type:

mkreiserfs -q /dev/md5

 

It will specifically format disk5.  Just be sure to type the correct device name... /dev/md5 = disk5 , /dev/md1 = disk1, /dev/md19 = disk19

 

Then, you can just "Stop" the array and then "Start" the array.  It should create the mount point and mount the disk.

 

This way YOU control which disk is formatted, and there is no danger of unRAID formatting other disks.

You also maintain parity protection throughout the process (assuming you used a pre-cleared drive)

 

This way you do not press the 'Format" button on the web-interface at all, and keep far away from any bug associated with it.

 

Joe L.

What I do is run the preclear utility and then use unMenu to format new drives.  So I only add already formatted drives to my array.  That way, I never press the Format button in unRAID.  To me, having to recalc parity making the drives unprotected for a time is a lesser-evil than potentially formatting one of my data drives accidently.

 

 

What I do is run the preclear utility and then use unMenu to format new drives.  So I only add already formatted drives to my array.  That way, I never press the Format button in unRAID.  To me, having to recalc parity making the drives unprotected for a time is a lesser-evil than potentially formatting one of my data drives accidently.

The "Format" button in unMENU does exactly the command I listed in my prior post.  You can have the best of both worlds, as long as you do not mistype the disk number of the disk you wish to format you are safe.

If you guys are ever in Arizona, I owe you all a beer.  Maybe Joe L. a keg.  Thanks Guys!

You could just drop back to an older version of unRAID.

 

Peter

 

You could just drop back to an older version of unRAID.

What version would someone need to drop back to in order to remove this bug?  I'm running 4.5.1 and i see the bug.

If I do the non-safe lime method as opposed to Joe's format console command, and there is only one drive showing as unformatted in the unraid menu, then pressing the format button should do only what it is supposed to do, format the single unformatted drive.

 

My understanding of the bug is that unraid, due to a timing error, does not properly recognize which drives assigned to the array are formatted and which are not, and the format button formats all drives that unraid has recognized and indicated as unformatted, whether they need to be or not.

 

Is the above correct? 

If I do the non-safe lime method as opposed to Joe's format console command, and there is only one drive showing as unformatted in the unraid menu, then pressing the format button should do only what it is supposed to do, format the single unformatted drive.

That is my understanding.    One user did report that they thought they only saw one drive as un-formatted, but it formatted all their drives regardless.   They were the only person reporting this behavior.

My understanding of the bug is that unraid, due to a timing error, does not properly recognize which drives assigned to the array are formatted and which are not, and the format button formats all drives that unraid has recognized and indicated as unformatted, whether they need to be or not.

 

Is the above correct?  

Basically, any drive that is unable to be mounted as a reiserfs file-system is considered to be un-formatted.  It could be a properly formatted NTFS disk, but to unRAID, the attempt to mount it as a reiserfs file-system did not succeed, so it is unformatted.

 

We are assuming that the file-systems are not mounting in a timely manner, and thus being reported unformatted in error.

 

Personally, until this is fixed, I'd just issue the command line format command and not press the "Format" button.  I'm far more likely to format the correct /dev/md device.  

 

Joe L.