Huy Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 I just started using unRAID a few days ago and finally finished transferring all of my old data yesterday, after three days of transferring. Now, I found out that it is better to preclear hard drives before adding them to an array. I didn't preclear any drives, just formatted them with the web GUI. Is preclearing really essential and should I start over? Link to comment
tdallen Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 Hello and welcome. No, it's not necessary to start over. Pre-clearing does two basic things - it zeros out the drive and adds a special signature so it can quickly be added to the array, and it stress tests the drive to help address "infant mortality" - hard drives that fail shortly after setting them up. Since you have already added the drives to the array there's no time savings associated with going back and preclearing. And adding them to the array does a single pass clear so you already have a bit of a stress test on the new drives. Just keep an eye on things as you begin using your array and report if you see anything funny - bad SMART values, log entries, or signs of disk failure. Link to comment
SSD Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 1 hour ago, tdallen said: Hello and welcome. No, it's not necessary to start over. Pre-clearing does two basic things - it zeros out the drive and adds a special signature so it can quickly be added to the array, and it stress tests the drive to help address "infant mortality" - hard drives that fail shortly after setting them up. Since you have already added the drives to the array there's no time savings associated with going back and preclearing. And adding them to the array does a single pass clear so you already have a bit of a stress test on the new drives. Just keep an eye on things as you begin using your array and report if you see anything funny - bad SMART values, log entries, or signs of disk failure. I agree. Chances of infant mortality is pretty low. Make sure you have notifications turned on so you are made aware of drive issues. Link to comment
JonathanM Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 6 hours ago, Huy said: I just started using unRAID a few days ago and finally finished transferring all of my old data yesterday, after three days of transferring. You left the data intact on the original drives as a backup, right? Unraid is not a substitute for a backup. Link to comment
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