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2 Bad Drives and a bad parity drive??


Tebasaki

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I have an Ex490 with a eSata connected to a Mediasonic 4 bay drive.

I have:

2 8Tb drives set as parity

1 8Tb drive

1 640Gb drive

1 240Gb drive

 

I finally got a couple more 8TB to expand my main set of drive (to replace my 640gb and 240gb) and when I went to unraid the 2nd parity, the 640gb and the 240gb drive had a little red X on it. I've been frantically trying to get them back up. I've scanned my parity with the SMART thing and I cannot seem to start up the array.

 

What do those red Xs mean? If my 2nd parity is OK, why can I not fire up my array and reconstruct the other 2 drives with my new two 8TB?

 

If I insert the drives in a different slot, will unraid be able to still see them?

 

I'd appreciate any help!

 

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2 hours ago, Tebasaki said:

If my 2nd parity is OK, why can I not fire up my array and reconstruct the other 2 drives with my new two 8TB?

 

Two parity drives means any two drives can fail and unRAID has enough data to rebuild. You have three missing drives.

 

Please upload diagnostics. Hopefully you collected diagnostics before restarting the machine, so the log files contains the log messages from when the problem started.

 

But if all three drives went away at the same time, then it's time to suspect other hardware issues. Was all three missing drives connected to the Mediasonic drive bays? The cable connection to an external multi-bay box can make all the external drives disconnect.

 

2 hours ago, Tebasaki said:

If I insert the drives in a different slot, will unraid be able to still see them?

 

Yes. As long as they are connected to a supported controller - and it isn't some RAID controller that doesn't present the full name/serial number of the drives - then unRAID will be able to see the drives and will also recognize their specific role in the array.

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Thank you for your reply.

 

I've attached my zip. (it looks like it's got the past three days so I think I lost the logs), but maybe you can make sense of it.

 

I did run a SMART diagnostic on the 2nd parity drive and it said "Completed without Error" so I'm not completely sure why there's still an X.

 

One observation I noticed was I think (I THINK) all three drives were in the Mediasonic and it was set back to USB (supposed to be eSATA), but when I switched it back, there's no luck.

 

As I was suggesting, if the 2nd parity diagnostics show completed without error, why can't I just plug in the two new 8TB and run with those? I confused why that 2nd parity is still red.

tower-diagnostics-20180820-0449.zip

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The red X means unRAID has disabled a drive because a write failed, so the disk contents are not completely valid anymore. Typically, this will mean you can rebuild the valid contents from the other disks in the array, but as already noted, you have too many disks disabled. unRAID will not use a disk it has disabled anymore until it is rebuilt. Instead, it will try to emulate the disk using the other disks in the array. But of course you have too many disabled to allow this either, so none of these disks can be used and neither can any parity. This is why unRAID won't allow you to start the array.

 

The write failure is often not actually a disk problem. Connection and controller issues are much more common than bad disks.

 

The way forward is going to be a New Config, but I can imagine several ways to proceed with that so it might be a good idea to let us discuss it a bit.

 

Does that Mediasonic bay have a separate eSATA connection for each of its drives, or is it using a port multiplier? Do you have a link you could give us to that hardware?

 

This sort of configuration is likely to continue to give you problems so you might consider doing something else to handle your expansion.

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Thank you for getting back to me.

 

Quote

Does that Mediasonic bay have a separate eSATA connection for each of its drives, or is it using a port multiplier?

It's just got one esata cord, but I'm not sure if there's a port multiplier or not. I would use USB3 as it's claimed to be a little faster, but the EX490 only has USB2.0

 

Here's the Mediasonic I purchased.

Mediasonic Link

 

Is the Mediasonic bad, then? I swapped a couple drives to see the results:

8TB main drive (working drive) from EX490 to Mediasonic and

640GB main drive (wasn't working) from Mediasonic to the EX490

 

Unraid gave that 640gb a red X still, but now it can see it. It looks like unraid can't see the drives that are in the mediasonic. Why is that bad now; it used to be able to see them.

 

This is my current configuration because the EX490 is a wonderful little drive, but only has 4 slots, and when you use unraid instead of windows server, it removes the ability to use one bay (down to three). I got the mediasonic as a great way to add 4 more drives and for awhile it worked!)

 

Could the problem have been the mediasonic switching from esata to usb, thus loosing the ability to write?

 

When you say new config, are you suggesting wipe it and start over?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tebasaki said:

When you say new config, are you suggesting wipe it and start over?

The New Config is a bit like starting over in that allows you to assign drives as you want them.     However any drives that have been previously used by unRAID will retains their data.    

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I'm not familiar with that EX480 either and a quick google didn't turn up anything. Got a link?

 

Probably the simplest approach is going to be to New Config with just your big disks in the main case, and then see if you can get anything from the small disks by mounting them outside the array with Unassigned Devices.

 

How important is this data? Do you have good backups of any important and irreplaceable files?

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Don't use USB instead of eSATA. Of the two eSATA is by far the better choice. You won't gain anything by using USB because you'll still be using the port multiplier in the external box. There is a lot of overhead when using USB so stick with eSATA if you're planning to continue using the Mediasonic box.

 

Once a disk has been dropped from the array (red cross) it won't be accepted back into the array until it is rebuilt or if you do a New Config.

 

Switching between eSATA and USB possibly changes the disk identifiers, which will make the disks unrecognised by unRAID.

 

What you need to do, first of all, is establish a good reliable connection between your unRAID server and your external box of disks and a way to test it is by to make sure the SMART information can be read. Check your syslog and look for SATA reconnects. If all the disks can be seen reliably then you can move on to the next stage and attempt to recover your data.

 

One of my servers is a HP Microserver Gen8, which has four drive bays. I have a similar arrangement, with another set of four disks in a external box, connected by eSATA and with a FIS-based port multiplier in the box. It isn't recommended but I did a lot of research and found the parts that work and I'm happy with the result. The eSATA cable is a weak point but I keep the system in a cupboard away from kids and pets. I chose an eSATA card and external enclosure that allows a 6 Gb/s eSATA connection and the port multiplier lets through SMART data. The eSATA connection is shared amongst the four disks but since unRAID doesn't stripe data normal read/write operations are not slowed down at all. You might think that there's a bottle-neck during parity checks/rebuilds and to an extent there is, but at an average of 120 MB/s with dual 6 TB parity and six 6 TB data disks I'm very happy with the result.

 

Incidentally, when I was planning my build I considered the Mediasonic box but rejected it. I don't have my notes so a don't remember why - maybe it only supports 3 Gb/s eSATA. In fact the only box that met my requirements was the ICY Cube by Icy Dock. That's the old version with built-in power supply. The new "improved" version has a wall wart external PSU.

 

Seasoned unRAID users would probably recommend you rethink your setup - if you want to use an external box of disks you really ought to be using a SAS connection - for one thing the external SAS connector is vastly more robust than the pathetically flimsy eSATA connector and the too-long, too-stiff cable doesn't help. But I'm happy that it can be done with eSATA so I won't be the one to dissuade you.

 

I've described my setup before so I won't repeat the details. I'll add a link if I can find the post.

 

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And another thing. Since you have so few drives and you need to fit capacity in a small space, you might consider not using dual parity. A 2nd parity drive makes the most sense if you have a lot of drives. If you have a system in good working order with few drives, single parity should be fine. And if your system isn't in good working order, it may not help anyway, as you have seen. Once you get your hardware straight (and your Notifications setup), you are unlikely to have 2 actual disk failures at the same time, especially if you don't have a lot of drives.

 

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" The New Config is a bit like starting over in that allows you to assign drives as you want them.     However any drives that have been previously used by unRAID will retains their data.  "

So you're saying that if the error is in the esata cable connecting the two devices, if unraid will recognize the drives and the data is still there, then if I get a single enclosure for all the drives everything should work (however because I have 3 Xs I can't rebuild anything as it's beyond my 2 parity limit)?

 

" Once a disk has been dropped from the array (red cross) it won't be accepted back into the array until it is rebuilt or if you do a New Config. "

Basically since I have 3 Xs (outside parity limit) I need a new config.

 

I've rebooted my unraid so I might have lost my logs, where exactly can I look to find the esata reconnect message; what am I looking for?

 

The data on there I currently have is some family pictures and TV shows, movies. I don't mind copying back the information (I have backups), but I would rather not go through the hassle of A.Restarting from a fresh copy of unraid and all the dockers I've put in. B. Using this device set up in for the potential that this happens again.

 

trurl, my 2nd 8TB drive is a parity drive (that has the red X).

 

Is there a link to how to rebuild a new config?

Bonus: Is there a link to how the SMART system works?

The only reason I'm setup like this is a friend gave me the EX490 free and the WHS was terrible on it. I wanted more space and when you put unraid on it you lose a drive slot (now total of 3). And external enclosure was my only option. Maybe I should just look to buying a bigger PC enclosure for all that.

 

Here's a link to the EX490.

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8 minutes ago, Tebasaki said:

I'm sorry. I meant that that EX490 won't recognize 1 out of the 4 slots when you boot unpaid from the USB. It's designed to use WHS, not unraid.

 

Are you sure? I don't know but that seems odd that it would allow you to boot unRAID but not see the "builtin" disk.

 

Definitely less than ideal, and with only 3 slots you don't want to waste one on parity2. With large enough disks, one as parity and 2 as data, it might be enough capacity for some people, at least for a while. And with unRAID it isn't that difficult to move your drives with their data intact to other hardware later.

 

If you really want to pursue this with an external enclosure you should definitely consider the advice John_M gave earlier, but I think I would just try to get along with 3 disks for now and plan to do a better build with new hardware later. Probably be cheaper in the long run.

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3 hours ago, Tebasaki said:

where exactly can I look to find the esata reconnect message

 

This is what you don't want to be seeing. It's from your own syslog and it repeats over and over every five seconds:

Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 10)
Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: EH complete
Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0xe frozen
Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: irq_stat 0x00800080, device exchanged
Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Aug 19 04:40:10 Tower kernel: ata1: hard resetting link

Notice that the controller has dropped the link speed to the lowest possible and it still can't maintain a reliable connection. You don't want any of the SATA connections resetting like that, whether internal or external. You might want to replace the eSATA cable and provide some sort of strain relief (and protection from inquisitive fingers and paws) for the connectors. I did manage to locate a reasonably flexible, fabric covered, round cross-section cable but it proved to be so heavy that it dragged on the connectors so I reverted to the stiff, flat black cable. It's similar to the standard flat red internal SATA cables that often come bundled with motherboards but it incorporates a braided screen (shield) that adds to its weight and stiffness. I found that by folding the excess and cable-tying it I could get it to stay put with minimal stress on the connectors

 

If you're going to pursue the two-box eSATA route you should make sure that you only have data disks in the external box. Keep parity and cache disks inside the main server.

 

There's a rather old and incomplete wiki page about SMART reports that nevertheless still contains some useful information here: https://lime-technology.com/wiki/Understanding_SMART_Reports

 

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Do you have a thread for alternative enclosures? I'm looking for something with 5-15 drives? It just sounds like it might be better to migrate to a capable enclosure and do it right.

 

Can I just plug in my unraid USB in a new system with my drives and it'll run the same?

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There's a fairly old thread here:

 

 

I personally like cases where the whole of the front is taken up by 5.25-inch bays. I bought a couple of Sharkoon T9 Value cases and like them a lot. I believe they've been discontinued but you might still be able to find them. They were inexpensive (£50/€60/$70) and therefore made of quite thin steel but they are sturdy enough for my needs. They have nine 5.25-inch bays, which are ideal for 5-in-3 cages for 15 3.5-inch drives. Or, for the more modest build you could fit four 3-in-2 cages for 12 3.5-inch drives and still have space for either an optical drive - I do a lot of ripping - or four or even eight 2.5-inch SSDs. They take full ATX motherboards, have seven PCI slots and the PSU mounts at the bottom with a filtered air intake.

 

Typical gamers don't use mechanical hard disks or 5.25-inch bays any more but need space instead for water cooling and multiple GPUs so the design of many available cases has evolved to suit.

 

Other notable brands include Fractal Design and Lian Li - the latter being especially gorgeous and expensive. Then there are rack-mount cases - ugly, loud and functional.

 

Many people list their build in their sig so enable sigs and look there and use Google to discover the specs.

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Like all of those links are dead. However it looks like an Antec 900 seems the way to go. They claim you can get 15 in there and it's $100.

 

It also looks like heat dissipation is VERY important for these things, so I'll have to consider quality airflow. What kind of motherboard/processor/ram do these things need. And, I mean I don't even need an OS.

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It looks like The R6 Black is the way to go. It has room for 11 bays, and seems like it's got good airflow. I just gotta use PCpartpicker for the ram and processor, and the power source.

 

Are there any recommendations on building a NAS server that are different than a PC? (like do I really need an i7? or do I really need 32G of ram?)

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i just built into an old 900 case i had spare, has space for 6 behind the 2 removable fan bays, i expect you could fit more in with ease though another bay could be easily fitted at the top, or use some of the 5 bay holders like these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Icy-Box-IB-555SSK-Backplane-Enclosure/dp/B002BLZ8TO/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1535374486&sr=8-14&keywords=5+bay+hdd+enclosure 

just need a few fans to keep everything cool

 

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