Low and behold one of my new Seagate 1.5TB drives died last night. Thankfully not the parity drive.

I removed the drive and the Unraid web gui shows disk 5 "Not Installed" which is what I expect.

 

The button to verify parity is no longer available which has me concerned. I will RMA the new Seagate on Monday but these turn around for replacement drives can take anywhere from two to three weeks. Is parity still being maintained and updated with one drive missing?

 

Does this mean if I loose another drive then I will loose data? If so I'm wondering if I should keep a spare 1.5TB drive on hand for such disasters.

Thanks

Katman

 

 

 

Some info about S.M.A.R.T http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Data_Recovery#Reading_S.M.A.R.T.

Low and behold one of my new Seagate 1.5TB drives died last night. Thankfully not the parity drive.

I removed the drive and the Unraid web gui shows disk 5 "Not Installed" which is what I expect.

 

The button to verify parity is no longer available which has me concerned. I will RMA the new Seagate on Monday but these turn around for replacement drives can take anywhere from two to three weeks. Is parity still being maintained and updated with one drive missing?

 

Does this mean if I loose another drive then I will loose data? If so I'm wondering if I should keep a spare 1.5TB drive on hand for such disasters.

Thanks

Katman

 

The answer to both of your questions is yes.  I wouldn't want to run for 2-3 weeks with a failed drive.  I'd recommend either shutting it down or getting another 1.5 TB immediately and use it to replace the failed drive.

 

Concerning the failed drive, did you try mounting it manually to see if you can read the data?  It the failure was due to a loose cable or something, the drive itself might be fine. If you are able to read the data, you could use Midnight Commander to copy the contents back over to Unraid (assuming you have enough free space) and the run the preclear script on the drive to see what the SMART report tells you.

If you remove a disk you need to follow this...(I got this info from Joe)

 

1. stop the array

2. un-assign the drive you wish to remove

3. Then, do one of the two following, depending on your version of unRAID.

   3a. if on a version  of unRAID with a "restore" button on the main page, press it after checking the checkbox under it

   3b. if on one of the recent versions of unRAID where the "restore" button has been replaced by a command line equivalent,  

   log in via telnet or on the system console and type:

   initconfig

4. Press "refresh" on your web-browser, all disks should show as "blue"

5. Press "Start"   (A new initial parity calculation will begin.  You'll be without parity protection until it is complete)

 

 

Some info about S.M.A.R.T http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Data_Recovery#Reading_S.M.A.R.T.

If you have had a data disk die, then this advice is VERY BAD.

 

Doing the procedure listed in the prior post will cause the array to forget the failed drive ever existed,

and all the data on it will be lost.

Low and behold one of my new Seagate 1.5TB drives died last night. Thankfully not the parity drive.

I removed the drive and the Unraid web gui shows disk 5 "Not Installed" which is what I expect.

 

The button to verify parity is no longer available which has me concerned.

To verify parity all drives must be working.  Since you have a failed/missing drive, you are currently using the parity drive in combination with all your other disks to simulate the failed drive.

 

You will still be able to read and write to the simulated drive.

I will RMA the new Seagate on Monday but these turn around for replacement drives can take anywhere from two to three weeks. Is parity still being maintained and updated with one drive missing?

The parity disk is being maintained and updated, and you will have parity protection once you replace and rebuild the failed drive but right now, you are not protected from a concurrent failure of a second disk.

Does this mean if I loose another drive then I will loose data?

Yes you will lose the data on the two failed drives.

If so I'm wondering if I should keep a spare 1.5TB drive on hand for such disasters.

Thanks

Katman

Many people do...  Others just do not wait for an RMA process, but purchase a drive as soon as possible for use as the replacement. Now is NOT the time to look for a sale, but to replace the drive as quickly as possible.

 

As already suggested, the drive may have failed or it might be a loose cable...   You should

Stop the array

Power down

Verify the connections to the drive (both power and data)

Power Up

Start the array.

 

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PRESS THE BUTTON LABELED AS "Restore" as it is actually an "Initialize Disk Configuration and Immediately Invalidate Parity" button.  It is NOT what you want to do.  It would set the configuration to the working drives only.  It would prevent the re-construction of your data onto the replacement drive.

Low and behold one of my new Seagate 1.5TB drives died last night. Thankfully not the parity drive.

I removed the drive and the Unraid web gui shows disk 5 "Not Installed" which is what I expect.

 

The button to verify parity is no longer available which has me concerned. I will RMA the new Seagate on Monday but these turn around for replacement drives can take anywhere from two to three weeks. Is parity still being maintained and updated with one drive missing?

 

Does this mean if I loose another drive then I will loose data? If so I'm wondering if I should keep a spare 1.5TB drive on hand for such disasters.

Thanks

Katman

 

The answer to both of your questions is yes.  I wouldn't want to run for 2-3 weeks with a failed drive.  I'd recommend either shutting it down or getting another 1.5 TB immediately and use it to replace the failed drive.

 

Concerning the failed drive, did you try mounting it manually to see if you can read the data?  It the failure was due to a loose cable or something, the drive itself might be fine. If you are able to read the data, you could use Midnight Commander to copy the contents back over to Unraid (assuming you have enough free space) and the run the preclear script on the drive to see what the SMART report tells you.

 

The drive that went bad has that fun "thunk thunk" sound...sorta reminds me of a ice cube in the disposal I didn't bother to hook it up anywhere to test.

If you remove a disk you need to follow this...(I got this info from Joe)

 

1. stop the array

2. un-assign the drive you wish to remove

3. Then, do one of the two following, depending on your version of unRAID.

   3a. if on a version  of unRAID with a "restore" button on the main page, press it after checking the checkbox under it

   3b. if on one of the recent versions of unRAID where the "restore" button has been replaced by a command line equivalent,  

   log in via telnet or on the system console and type:

   initconfig

4. Press "refresh" on your web-browser, all disks should show as "blue"

5. Press "Start"   (A new initial parity calculation will begin.  You'll be without parity protection until it is complete)

 

 

Some info about S.M.A.R.T http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Data_Recovery#Reading_S.M.A.R.T.

If you have had a data disk die, then this advice is VERY BAD.

 

Doing the procedure listed in the prior post will cause the array to forget the failed drive ever existed,

and all the data on it will be lost.

 

Oh man...I'm a dumb idiot. I should have read the tread all the way through! The array is online and rebuilding parity but yes I am missing data

Teach me not to read the entire thread. 

Sorry you did not get good advice, or read my warning about following them.

 

 

The person who attempted to help you was following instructions on how to remove a disk from an array after copying its data elsewhere.  They were not appropriate for your failed data disk.  Apparently, they too are confused.

 

Say goodbye to the data on that failed disk.  By now it is probably erased from parity, and parity calculated on the REMAINING working disks, and if the original disk is mechanically bad, then your data on the failed disk is gone forever unless you have a backup.

 

Joe L.

Sorry you did not get good advice, or read my warning about following them.

   

 

The person who attempted to help you was following instructions on how to remove a disk from an array after copying its data elsewhere.   They were not appropriate for your failed data disk.  Apparently, they too are confused.

 

Say goodbye to the data on that failed disk.   By now it is probably erased from parity, and parity calculated on the REMAINING working disks, and if the original disk is mechanically bad, then your data on the failed disk is gone forever unless you have a backup.

 

Joe L.

 

Indeed....I'm SOL. Thankfully seems like only the most recent data I copied to the RAID which was several ACRONIS backups which I will rerun once the parity rebuild is done. I learnt a valuable lesson here - READ the entire thread

I learnt a valuable lesson here - READ the entire thread

 

Also, try to gain an understanding of what a set of instructions is trying to achieve.  A moment's thought should have made it obvious that rebuilding parity with a missing drive is going to destroy your chance of recovering data from that missing drive.

Sorry you did not get good advice, or read my warning about following them.

   

 

The person who attempted to help you was following instructions on how to remove a disk from an array after copying its data elsewhere.   They were not appropriate for your failed data disk.  Apparently, they too are confused.

 

Say goodbye to the data on that failed disk.   By now it is probably erased from parity, and parity calculated on the REMAINING working disks, and if the original disk is mechanically bad, then your data on the failed disk is gone forever unless you have a backup.

 

Joe L.

 

Indeed....I'm SOL. Thankfully seems like only the most recent data I copied to the RAID which was several ACRONIS backups which I will rerun once the parity rebuild is done. I learnt a valuable lesson here - READ the entire thread

 

Hi meerkat154, I'm so sorry that I misunderstand you, I apologize so much.

 

//Peter

 

Sorry you did not get good advice, or read my warning about following them.

   

 

The person who attempted to help you was following instructions on how to remove a disk from an array after copying its data elsewhere.   They were not appropriate for your failed data disk.  Apparently, they too are confused.

 

Say goodbye to the data on that failed disk.   By now it is probably erased from parity, and parity calculated on the REMAINING working disks, and if the original disk is mechanically bad, then your data on the failed disk is gone forever unless you have a backup.

 

Joe L.

 

Indeed....I'm SOL. Thankfully seems like only the most recent data I copied to the RAID which was several ACRONIS backups which I will rerun once the parity rebuild is done. I learnt a valuable lesson here - READ the entire thread

 

Hi meerkat154, I'm so sorry that I misunderstand you, I apologize so much.

 

//Peter

 

 

No problem at all Peter - I should have read all the thread posts and it makes sense to not rebuild the parity without having replaced the drive. Of course the parity would loose the data from the drive that died. Only have myself to blame

I lost mostly recent Acronis backups which I redid last night so all is good.

-Kat