Disk Drive Red Ball now working (Is it safe to use?)

[timz]

So about 2 weeks ago I had a disk in UNRAID go completely missing (Red Ball) during a preclear of a separate disk (Western Digital 6TB Red)

 

I tried several things:

 

1.  Rebooted Several times

2.  Examined the disk for physical defects.

3.  Moved disk to a different slot (I tried 4 different slots on my 12 drive computer)

 

After replacing the disk in the array, and completing a parity check (all data safe). I tried to mount the hard drive on a separate computer using a hdd to usb converter. The disk mounted perfectly and all data was there.  I tried putting the disk back in UNRAID and again, it could not find it.

 

I then wiped the disk with the linux "shred" command. (Sets all bits to zero). After that, UNRAID now recognizes the drive with no issues.

 

I ran it with a pre-clear and it worked perfectly.

 

Is this disk safe to use with UNRAID?

 

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by timz
Punctionation Edit

[SSD]

22 minutes ago, timz said:

So about 2 weeks ago I had a disk in UNRAID go completely missing (Red Ball) during a preclear of a separate disk (Western Digital 6TB Red)

 

I tried several things:

 

1.  Rebooted Several times

2.  Examined the disk for physical defects.

3.  Moved disk to a different slot (I tried 4 different slots on my 12 drive computer)

 

After replacing the disk in the array, and completing a parity check (all data safe). I tried to mount the hard drive on a separate computer using a hdd to usb converter. The disk mounted perfectly and all data was there.  I tried putting the disk back in UNRAID and again, it could not find it.

 

I then wiped the disk with the linux "shred" command. (Sets all bits to zero). After that, UNRAID now recognizes the drive with no issues.

 

I ran it with a pre-clear and it worked perfectly.

 

Is this disk safe to use with UNRAID?

 

Your story doesn't make a lot of sense. Drive recognition has nothing to do with the contents of a drive.

 

I suggest posting a diagnostics file, and let us look to see if there are any hints about the drive.

 

I would mention that cabling issues to a drive are relatively common and cause disks to not be recognized at boot. But you were doing a lot of connecting and disconnecting and drive was consistently not appearing. That is not typical of a loose cable, but it could still be you have a bad cable or broken connector that was inhibiting the connection.

 

The second most common issue is use of Marvell controllers, often the Supermicro models. But they don't stop the drives from being recognized at boot. They just cause drives to drop offline randomly.

 

Post the diagnostics file and let's have a look. Make sure to mention the specific drive that had been the problem.

[JorgeB]

19 minutes ago, timz said:

I then wiped the disk with the linux "shred" command. (Sets all bits to zero). After that, UNRAID now recognizes the drive with no issues.

Can't see the connection between this and the disk not being detected.

 

20 minutes ago, timz said:

Is this disk safe to use with UNRAID?

Hard to say, harder without at least seeing the SMART report, but there must be a reason for the disk not being detected in several slots, diagnostics from those tries might also help.

 

[timz]

4 hours ago, SSD said:

 

Your story doesn't make a lot of sense. Drive recognition has nothing to do with the contents of a drive.

 

I suggest posting a diagnostics file, and let us look to see if there are any hints about the drive.

 

I would mention that cabling issues to a drive are relatively common and cause disks to not be recognized at boot. But you were doing a lot of connecting and disconnecting and drive was consistently not appearing. That is not typical of a loose cable, but it could still be you have a bad cable or broken connector that was inhibiting the connection.

 

The second most common issue is use of Marvell controllers, often the Supermicro models. But they don't stop the drives from being recognized at boot. They just cause drives to drop offline randomly.

 

Post the diagnostics file and let's have a look. Make sure to mention the specific drive that had been the problem.

 

I agree the story doesn't make sense. I am wondering why clearing data on the disk fixed anything. I have attached the diagnostics. The drive that had the issue was /dev/sdb (WDC_WD60EFRX-68MYMN1_WD-WX31D847KD09).

tower-diagnostics-20180211-1055.zip

Edited February 11, 2018 by timz
Add attachment.

[timz]

On 2/11/2018 at 1:09 PM, timz said:

 

I agree the story doesn't make sense. I am wondering why clearing data on the disk fixed anything. I have attached the diagnostics. The drive that had the issue was /dev/sdb (WDC_WD60EFRX-68MYMN1_WD-WX31D847KD09).

All indications are that the drive is good. I have a smart report showing the drive is fine. I am going to put in in the array as the 2nd parity drive for the time being until I need to expand the array and make a decision down the road.