The importance of small details, or how I nearly spent another £200


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I recently upgraded to unRAID 6.4.1 and whilst I was there I did a few housekeeping tasks. Installed a different variation of the Plex docker (existing one refused to do an update) and reinstalled a Deluge docker. I also took the opportunity to install the 'Fix Common Problems' plugin.

 

Fix Common Problems was great. Pointing out a couple of small issues that I could easily take care of. I haven't done anything about the "no CPU Scaling driver installed", because it doesn't really affect anything.

 

One small, tiny little notice about "folder mounted under /mnt" error. I forget the wording. 

 

So... I plod merrily along, using my server as normal. Then I notice a SMART warning on my parity drive. It's a 6 year-old drive and I wasn't the original owner. I decide it's time to upgrade, so I order 4 x 2TB Toshiba drives for under £200.

 

Then my array starts dropping out. All drives just disappearing from the unRAID control panel. So I think "crap, I'd better get some new drives in quickly. Can't wait the 5 days for eBuyer shipping". I cancel that order and go to Amazon for 4 x 2TB Seagate drives for £215. Prime membership means next-day delivery.

 

Drives arrive and I swap out the 1TB drive for a nice, new (manufactured Jan 2018, nice!) Seagate 2TB drive.

 

Parity is recalculating.

 

Array drops out. I reboot.

 

Parity is recalculating.

 

Array drops out.

 

Crap. Crap. Crap!

 

I check cabling and fire back up. All is well. Parity is recalculating.

 

Recalculating completes.

 

I power down and swap out one of the three 500GB array drives.

 

New drive rebuilds.

 

Array drops out.

 

At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to buy a new motherboard, because I know my SATA cabling is good, but my motherboard is old.

 

It's £200 for an equivalent replacement. I nearly buy it.

 

Then I remember this 'folder mounted under /mnt" error.

 

Longer story shorter... I've somehow botched the reinstall of the Deluge docker and it's creating a folder '/mnt/NAS/unsorted-downloads/' and it's merrily filling up... my 32GB boot USB. When it gets full, it drops the array out. Not 'array offline'... everything just disappears and even the server log is inaccessible.

 

 

The moral of the story is, pay attention to even small details when Fix Common Problems tells you something. I suspect my old 1TB parity drive still has some life left in it and I've spent £215 on an unnecessary, but thankfully not unwelcome storage upgrade.

 

 

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23 hours ago, DigitalStefan said:

I forget the wording. 

 

"Invalid folder <font color='purple'>$drive</font> contained within /mnt","Generally speaking, most times when other folders get created within /mnt it is a result of an improperly configured application. This error may or may not cause issues for you"

 

In your case, it looks like it did cause issues for you...

 
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23 hours ago, DigitalStefan said:

t's creating a folder '/mnt/NAS/unsorted-downloads/' and it's merrily filling up... my 32GB boot USB. When it gets full, it drops the array out.

Actually, it would be filling up memory, which is where the unmounted /mnt stuff resides, just like everything else in the unRAID OS. The boot USB is at /boot.

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On 3/1/2018 at 11:58 AM, DigitalStefan said:

Then I notice a SMART warning on my parity drive. It's a 6 year-old drive and I wasn't the original owner. I decide it's time to upgrade, so I order 4 x 2TB Toshiba drives for under £200.

 

It wasn't a SMART attribute 199 (UDMA CRC error) by any chance was it? If so you may have missed another small detail too.

 

On 1/16/2018 at 11:38 PM, ljm42 said:

Starting wth 6.4.1, unRAID now monitors SMART attribute 199 (UDMA CRC errors) for you.  If you get an alert about this right after upgrading, you can just acknowledge it, as the error probably happened in the past.  If you get an alert down the road, it is likely due to a loose SATA cable. Reseat both ends, or replace if needed. (see this)

 

From:

unRAID OS version 6.4.1 Stable Release - Update Notes

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