Prepare New Drives For 6.4.1?

[namley]

Does anyone know if there is an easy way to prepare new drives for 6.4.1?

I notice that pre-clear isn't an option anymore, I can see it's really not required as the array can function while clearing the drives.

My issue is I have my drives stored in a Dell Md1000 storage array connected to an Dell h800. So the Sata2 bus gets destroyed while downloading or writing to an active data drive. 
The 8 3TB data drives I just added are clearing at 3.5mb/s which is going to take almost a week to complete.

Is there a way I can do this on another computer or unraid setup to prepare them as new datadrives?

I have considered but not tested running an older version of unraid ( one that supports the preclear function ) and clearing them on that.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

My current setup is:

Parity 1 : 8TB SeaGate exos enterprise sas.
Datadrives are 8 HP MDL 3TB sas drives.

Cache drives are 2x 256gb Samsung 850 pros SSD.

I have a second 8TB exos to add as the second parity drive and more 8tb WD red pros on order to fill up the remaining  4 slots in the array.

 

Thanks.

Edited February 15, 2018 by namley

[Squid]

8 minutes ago, namley said:

Is there a way I can do this on another computer or unraid setup to prepare them as new datadrives?

You can make another USB for unRaid (trial version)

 

Download and install any version of unRaid other than 6.4.1 (6.4.0 and 6.3.5 are available on limetech's website), then install the Preclear plugin on it and do your thing

10 minutes ago, namley said:

The 8 3TB data drives I just added are clearing at 3.5mb/s which is going to take almost a week to complete.

Preclearing would take the same amount of time (actually it would wind up taking 3 times as long with default settings)

 

Probably best off though not clearing so many drives at once.  Go one at a time, and once its done start transferring your info over to it while you're clearing the next.  Net time should wind up being a lot faster.

[namley]

6 minutes ago, Squid said:

You can make another USB for unRaid (trial version)

 

Download and install any version of unRaid other than 6.4.1 (6.4.0 and 6.3.5 are available on limetech's website), then install the Preclear plugin on it and do your thing

Preclearing would take the same amount of time (actually it would wind up taking 3 times as long with default settings)

 

Probably best off though not clearing so many drives at once.  Go one at a time, and once its done start transferring your info over to it while you're clearing the next.  Net time should wind up being a lot faster.

I will drop the array down and add them one by one.

I forgot to ask, is it possible to clone the parity drive with the array down and insert that second parity drive without having to rebuild it?

 

You also mentioned "default" settings.
Are there optimized settings that I should be looking at for my configuration?

 

Thanks again

Edited February 15, 2018 by namley

[Squid]

2 minutes ago, namley said:

Are there optimized settings that I should be looking at for my configuration?

IIRC Preclear does a write then a verify across the whole drive, and additionally does random seeks.  Takes at least 2x longer than unRaid's simple clear

 

4 minutes ago, namley said:

I forgot to ask, is it possible to clone the parity drive with the array down and insert that second parity drive without having to rebuild it?

Not really.  It's not a clone of the first drive, but rather uses a different calculation for its contents.

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, namley said:

My issue is I have my drives stored in a Dell Md1000 storage array connected to an Dell h800. So the Sata2 bus gets destroyed while downloading or writing to an active data drive. 
The 8 3TB data drives I just added are clearing at 3.5mb/s which is going to take almost a week to complete.

Are these drives currently connected the exact way they will be used in the active array? If so, I don't think this is going to work, as parity checks and more importantly failed disk rebuilds are going to utilize all the drives at once, giving you similar speeds to what you are seeing for the clear.

 

If I missed something in translation, sorry.

[naturalblue]

Here is a reddit that has a link to a working preclear for 6.4.1.

 

[Xywei]

I just precleared 14 drives using this "unofficial" Preclear plugin in the preclear post, and it worked in 6.4.1