I've lost my whole configuration for some reason. It even went back to call the unraid server Tower. I cant even get into the web interface. 

 

At the console, my messages and faillogs are empty.

 

 

After a reboot?  Sounds like flash corruption...

 

Can you telnet/SSH in?  If so, do so, then type diagnostics, power down the server and post the diagnostics file that should be on your flash.

Thanks CHBMB.

 

I was was able to telnet/ssh.

 

I shutdown using the command line and stuck the usb drive in my personal laptop, and it kept connecting & disconnecting. Looks like the usb circuits on the flash drive are hosed.

There goes my Samsung 32GB fit.

 

Ordered a new Sandisk Curser fit 3.0. 

 

Is there a FAQ/Guide on when your USB drive goes bad?

Not that I'm aware of.  Did you backup your flash at all?

Nope. 

 

I just completed rebuilding the array (upgrading the drives from 3TB to 8TB) and consistency (hashing) when this happened. I was trying to finish my docker apps before I did a config backup. 

 

I was hoping BTRFS (like ZFS) would get my array up and running without having to start with a clean slate.

My guess is that I will have to pull the data off manually drive by drive and rebuild my array from scratch.

 

Too bad Unraid doesn't allow for the OS to run off a STAT/SAS disk  with a Pro license. I could of manually created RAID 0 Array for the OS. I may have to look into seeing if I can  do that manually with 2 USB sticks.

 

Thanks again CHBMB!

Edited September 10, 20178 yr by crasch

There's very little stored on the flash drive

 

Drive assignments

Custom Share configuration (security, etc).  But, all your shares will still be there without this.

Plugins to install (and their configuration).  But pretty much all of them have next to no configuration required.

Docker Templates.  All of the metadata (plex library, et al) are all on the cache drive, but the templates themselves are for the time being on the flash.  You just need to setup again your templates with the path mappings, etc that you had.

 

Flash backups are a joke to do, and pointless to try and raid them together or anything.  Simply copy the config folder from the flash somewhere safe, and you're done.

 

6.4 has a backup utility with it, Community Applications comes with a module to backup the flash and the appdata shares.

 

All in all, I'd say though that for most users, the flash drive is actually the most reliable component of their entire server.  Very little writes, basically only read at boot up time.  It just sits there looking pretty.

Thanks Squid.

 

I agree the USB is nice if you make sure all your logs are write to tempfs (RAM drive). The problem is that usb drives are not made to last very long or for an enterprise environment. Most of my equipment is enterprise level (Xeon with ECC memory and enterprise drives.) You know how us IT guys are, always looking for a way to prevent a failures. The whole reason I was moving from 3TB to 8TB drives was that SMART had shown some read/write errors close to the threshold levels (especially since the drives were already over 5 years old) 

 

I'll setup up a backup schedule to back up my config directory to a un-array drive. (Mounting it with unassigned devices plug-in).

 

As before, I'm more worried about my data on the array than anything else. Was going to build another NAS to backup to. Wished Amazon was keeping unlimited. 

 

Thanks for the input.

Edited September 10, 20178 yr by crasch

Your data will be intact.    It is merely a case of re-assigning all your drives as they were before and unRAID will detect they are in unRAID format and bring them back online.   In terms of backing up your flash information the ability to do this is part of the Community Applications plug-ins.

Edited September 10, 20178 yr by itimpi

Thanks itimpi.

 

I got a temporary trial key till support moves my key to the new GUID. Like you said, the data looks good. Will look up the community apps for scheduling out backups of the configs to another NAS of disk.

Edited September 11, 20178 yr by crasch