(solved) what's the simplest way of remotely formatting a drive outside of the array?


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so since I am pushing my old unRAID system to the edge by trying to run a Windows 10 VM on it (I upgraded the CPU to a Q9550 and am trying to upgrade the RAM from 4GB to the max 8GB if I can figure out how to upgrade the BIOS and hopefully get it to see the other 4GB), the speed of the VM is mostly held back by residing on the cache hard disk of my array.

so I ordered a 525GB Crucial SSD with the goal to swap out the 3TB cache drive for the SSD...the cache drive now holds a total of about 300GB, so the SSD is petty big for that, even though only the Windows 10 VM really needs to reside on it, which is 80GB, and the rest I could move to disk 1 of my array.

when I went to the physical location of the server today, I was so confused about how to properly add the SSD to unRAID (outside of the array), copy the most important files from the cache drive to the SSD and then swap out the cache drive for the SSD, that I did all the wrong things (please try not to judge me for what I tried):

- I first stopped the array
- then I plugged in the SSD to the connectors that used to go to drive11 (I have reduced my array down to 10 drives in the past few weeks)

- then I tried to format the SSD via UDEV (but the "Format" button was grayed out")
- (this is where I went crazy) then I added a second slot to the cache and assigned the SSD to it and started the array again (got an error about too many cache profiles)

- stopped the array, unassigned the SSD from the cache pool, deleted the second slot
- the SSD now shows as btrfs and having only 2GB available

- ssh'd into the /mnt folder and tried to parted the SSD drive in hope of formatting it, but got these errors:
  warning: Unable to open /mnt/disks/Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1_174819E3876C
  read-write (Is a directory).  /mnt/disks/Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1_174819E3876C has
  been opened read-only.
  Error: The device /mnt/disks/Crucial_CT525MX300SSD1_174819E3876C is so small
  that it cannot possibly store a file system or partition table.  Perhaps you
  selected the wrong device?


needless to say that I have no idea what I am doing and need help formatting the drive, copying the most relevant files from the current cache drive to it, and then assigning it as cache, instead of the current 3TB spinner, then re-linking the vdisk of my Windows 10 VM to it (if that is even necessary if the directory structure on it is the same as on the 3TB drive I use at the moment).

if my old father called me with something like this, I would ask him "you did *what*?!"...so yeah, I know that was a pretty weak attempt at implementing an SSD into my system and swapping it for the current ache drive.

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Easiest way to do the cache replacement (but not the fastest) would be to use this procedure:

 

https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/46802-faq-for-unraid-v6/?do=findComment&comment=511923

 

If your current cache is btrfs the quickest way is doing an online replacement:

 

https://lime-technology.com/forums/topic/46802-faq-for-unraid-v6/?do=findComment&comment=525075

 

 

 

 

 

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amazing, the things you know, jb.

 

I had hoped to not have to go back to the physical location the server is hosted at, but I guess it will be necessary.

 

when you say "for best performance", how much additional performance are we talking about? 10% 30% 50% 100%?

since the difference between a hard drive and this SSD will likely be quite noticeable, no matter what, how would I go about pre-clearing it remotely until I get physical access to it again to connect it to one of the on-board ports?

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when u describe it like that, nuhull, I wonder whether I messed up when first assigning the SSD to the cache pool (this is my first time of using a cache drive)...my (probably wrong) assumption was that cache drives are not really part of the array in the sense that they are not striped/protected and work as individual entities...that they are quicker in part because they aren't subject to the RAID5 calculation...so when you say "I let parity" run, I must say that I didn't even pay attention whether there were any parity operations that were starting or happening when I added the SSD, created a second cache slot in the WebGUI, added the SSD to the second slot and then removed it again...not sure exactly what/why I did there, but I have a feeling that I messed with the partition table of the SSD right there. I also didn't check whether/when the "format" button was grayed out or not after I first started the array again.

jb, I was looking at the attached screen when determining that it is shown as "sdl"...am I not interpreting this correctly?
one way or another, these are the most recent diags.

screenshot_26.png

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Yep, SSD is still part of the cache pool:

 

Data,RAID1: Size:229.00GiB, Used:181.82GiB
   /dev/sde1     229.00GiB
   /dev/sdl1     229.00GiB

Best way forward would be to use the first link I gave you to replace the cache, i.e., move all data on cache to the array, destroy the pool, recreate using only the SSD, move data back.

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P.S. blkdiscard would work on a mounted disk, maybe lucky the SSD is on a controller without trim support or I'm not sure what would've happen to the cache pool, since the pool is in an unsupported state, I'm also afraid of just doing a normal device removal, so still think the above advice is the safest way to go, and don't reboot before it's done or you might get an unmountable pool.

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  • tillkrueger changed the title to (solved) what's the simplest way of remotely formatting a drive outside of the array?

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