preclear won't resume or response

[Brydezen]

Hello guys,

 

I had a preclear running on an old hard drive I had laying around, and thought I would put it to some good use. So I hooked it up to my server and started the preclear app for the drive, and it ran just fine, was on step 3 of 6 (Zeroing) and I got a notification about the 6.4.1 OS update. So I stopped the preclear on my disk, and went ahead and updated the OS. After the reboot, I ofc tried to start up the preclear again, but it gives me no information, about the temp, FS or options to mount the drive. I can't click to format button (nothing happens) and if I click the preclear icon all the information I labeled as; undefined I looked in my USB boot folder under the preclear plugin, and there is still a resume file for my drive?

 

Can someone guide me what to do? I would like for the preclear to resume from before the update. But if I have to start over, then I will do that, no problem! Hope to hear from some of the intelligent minds in here!

 

EDIT: I found out that, I had to enable an option under the unassigned devices tool in settings. (Settings > Unassigned Devices > Destructive Mode and set it to Enabled.) now the drive is formated to xfs, and I can mount it and share it over the network. But the preclear tool is still not starting and still says the drive info is undefined. :-( 

 

Best regards,

Brydezen 

Edited February 3, 2018 by Brydezen

[wgstarks]

The preclear plugin isn’t compatible with 6.4+. You can still run preclears using the script though.

[Brydezen]

2 hours ago, wgstarks said:

The preclear plugin isn’t compatible with 6.4+. You can still run preclears using the script though.

 

Yeah, I just read that on the plugin thread for preclear. But how do I run it with the script tho? And do I get any indication on when it's done? 

[dlandon]

1 minute ago, Brydezen said:

 

Yeah, I just read that on the plugin thread for preclear. But how do I run it with the script tho? And do I get any indication on when it's done? 

Because UD uses the preclear status file the script creates, you can see the status on the UD webpage. 

[Brydezen]

4 minutes ago, dlandon said:

Because UD uses the preclear status file the script creates, you can see the status on the UD webpage. 

 

Nooot exactly sure what u are referring too, this is my second month with unraid :-( and do U know how to run the script from the terminal? not sure but found something in:  /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/preclear.disk/script/preclear.sh and preclear_disk.sh but have no clue how it works, don't just wanna run it. Don't want to lose disks or anything

[dlandon]

Just now, Brydezen said:

 

Nooot exactly sure what u are referring too, this is my second month with unraid :-( and do U know how to run the script from the terminal? not sure but found something in:  /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/preclear.disk/script/preclear.sh and preclear_disk.sh but have no clue how it works, don't just wanna run it. Don't want to lose disks or anything

The UD plugin (Unassigned Devices) shows the preclear status on a disk being precleared.  I don't remember how the preclear script works.  I haven't used it in years.  I'm really not a fan of preclearing disks.  They are cleared when adding them to the array so it's not necessary.

 

 

[Brydezen]

1 minute ago, dlandon said:

The UD plugin (Unassigned Devices) shows the preclear status on a disk being precleared.  I don't remember how the preclear script works.  I haven't used it in years.  I'm really not a fan of preclearing disks.  They are cleared when adding them to the array so it's not necessary.

 

 

 

I know they are cleared when adding them to the array, but then the array has to be offline for the entire period while the one disks clears? And that kinda suck, as it's hosting my VM for daily use :-(

[itimpi]

8 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

 

I know they are cleared when adding them to the array, but then the array has to be offline for the entire period while the one disks clears? And that kinda suck, as it's hosting my VM for daily use :-(

The array is not offline while unRAID is clearing a disk.  That used to be the case but has not been so for some time now.

[wgstarks]

8 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

then the array has to be offline for the entire period while the one disks clears

That hasn’t been true for several years. Unraid will clear a disk in the background while the server is online.

 

To use the script you would probably need to do it the old fashioned way using screen. I haven’t used this method lately so there might be some issues with 6.4. maybe.

[Squid]

3 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

 

I know they are cleared when adding them to the array, but then the array has to be offline for the entire period while the one disks clears? And that kinda suck, as it's hosting my VM for daily use :-(

No.  The array is not taken offline.

 

Here's the history of Preclear

 

- Originally when adding a new disk to the array, unRaid didn't start the array until after the disk was cleared.  This process took hours upon hours during which you couldn't do anything with the server at all

- @Joe L. came up with a script that would clear the disks in advance (hence preclear) and then when adding the drive to the array after it was precleared, it only took about a minute or so.

- Because of this its been banged into everyone's heads the necessity of preclearing all drives

- Starting with v6.x, unRaid clears the disk in the background prior to adding it, so the net result is that your system is still available and is never offline for hours upon hours.

- The preclear plugin came about because there are still some advantages to running a preclear on a new disk, as it automates checking for reallocated sectors etc during the process.

- Ultimately though, many users have had nothing but problems with the preclear plugin over the years.  I would call it a beta still with issues (not including the fact that it won't even install under 6.4.1)

 

I'm of the mindset that preclearing is completely unnecessary nowadays.  The webUI automatically lets you know about any reallocated sector changes, and if you really want you can also always run the drive's extended test directly from the webUI to fully test the drive at any point.  The preclear plugin (when it installs) adds a layer of complexity to the underlying system that occasionally does interfere with other operations of your server.

 

Many users will however disagree with @dlandon and myself on the necessity of a preclear to test drives, but my recommendation is to not worry about preclearing drives.  I haven't myself done it since unRaid v5 and I couldn't care less.

 

 

[Brydezen]

Oh, so I can just take the array offline, but in the new disk, and take the array online again, and unraid will clear the disk for me without the plugin, and i will still be able to power up my vms? that is kinda sweet if that's the case. But can I turn off the machine also, or does the clearing process have to complete in one go, when adding it to the array? 

 

Best regards, 

Brydezen

[Squid]

3 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

But can I turn off the machine also, or does the clearing process have to complete in one go

One shot.  If its interrupted, then the process will start over again.

[dlandon]

4 minutes ago, Squid said:

Many users will however disagree with @dlandon and myself on the necessity of a preclear to test drives, but my recommendation is to not worry about preclearing drives.  I haven't myself done it since unRaid v5 and I couldn't care less.

I too haven't precleared a disk since v5.

[Brydezen]

2 minutes ago, Squid said:

One shot.  If its interrupted, then the process will start over again.

So that is one advantage that the preclear plugin has, U can stop and start it as u please, that is kinda awesome. So one last question, how long do U think it will take unraid to clear a disk of 2TB? - if it takes 5 hours like the prereading in preclear, I think I will wait until tomorrow to add it :-D

[dlandon]

2 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

So that is one advantage that the preclear plugin has, U can stop and start it as u please, that is kinda awesome.

Yea, when it works.

 

2 minutes ago, Brydezen said:

So one last question, how long do U think it will take unraid to clear a disk of 2TB? - if it takes 5 hours like the prereading in preclear, I think I will wait until tomorrow to add it :-D

The array comes back on line as soon as the disk is formatted - minutes, not hours.

[Brydezen]

Yeah when it works hahahaha - touché
 

- Oh thought it would take hours, as the preclear plugin take hours on each step :-O Gonna try it out now then brb  

[Squid]

The clear process takes hours.  The formatting after its done takes minutes

[Brydezen]

Just now, Squid said:

The clear process takes hours.  The formatting after its done takes minutes

i found out when the array went online  - but thats just how it is then! Now I got a good reason to stay up late  hahah

[dlandon]

Isn't a new disk already cleared at the factory?

[bonienl]

40 minutes ago, Squid said:

Many users will however disagree with @dlandon and myself on the necessity of a preclear to test drives, but my recommendation is to not worry about preclearing drives.  I haven't myself done it since unRaid v5 and I couldn't care less.

 

The preclear script was written when there was no proper support in unRAID itself. With the introduction of unRAID6 there is no real necessity to run the preclear script.

 

[Brydezen]

@dlandon it's an old external hard drive that I took out of the box it was in, as I didn't really use it, and would like so more storage space on my server. So it had a lot of old junk data i didn't need anymore. :-D but i'm not sure if a disk is cleared from factory. As I said, i'm on my second month with unraid. And i didn't even know that their was no need for the preclear plugin

 

@bonienl I found out. Kinda awesome I don't need the plugin after all! Even tho it was nice having the option to stop and start the clearing/reading in the preclear pluing. If i need to quickly restart the server for some reason. 

 

But a little off topic: I got an ASRock EP2C602 MB and in the BIOS it does say I can boot from the UEFI USB but just wanna be totally sure. Is it safe to enable UEFI boot then? Would be nice to clear the USB port on the back of the IO shield for something else :-)