Hi all,

 

I just finished to build my UnRAID server:

 

Case: NORCO RPC-4220

PSU: Corsair TX750W

CPU: Athlon II X4 635

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H

Memory: KINGSTON 2x2G KVR1333D3N9K2/4G

HBA: 2 x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-port SATA Controller PCI Express x4 Card (not yet installed)

Parity and Data HDs: WD20EARS with jumper on pins 7&8

 

Everyting went smooth until to synch the parity disc.  I have 3 hard drives installed at this time to evaluate the software all connected on the MB (Sata 2.0, not 3.0).

 

Problem: Parity drive will take over a week to sync.  Is it normal???

 

See a picture of my GUI attached.

 

Thanks,

 

Jean-Martin

 

 

 

Problem: Parity drive will take over a week to sync.  Is it normal???

No, attach a copy of your syslog to your next post.  It should take under 12 hours on most hardware and with a modern MB and as few disks as you have, it should progress at about 60 - 80 MB/s.  You are running at about 1/10th that speed.

 

 

Joe L.

I will do it tonight when I will be back to home.  In the mean time, it is normal to have a high number of reads & writes on the HDs?  I only have 1 movie per disk for testing.

 

Thx,

 

Jean-Martin

Did you use brand new WD disks or they were hooked up to a Windows machine to check them out first before placing a jumper on pin7-8.

The WD drives were brand new.  I removed them from the manufacturer packaging, installed a jumper and connected them to the array.

 

Is it better to format them outside the box before?

 

Thanks,

 

Jean-Martin

Is it better to format them outside the box before?

It is better to install the jumper before doing anything with the drive.  Installing it after the drive is formatted sometimes ends up with a drive that is very slow.

 

It sounds like you did it in the correct sequence.  Something else must be causing the slow performance.

 

Joe L.

Please find attached my Syslog.pdf file.

 

Let me know if you find something suspicious 

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Jean-Martin

Syslog.pdf

Please find attached my Syslog.pdf file.

 

Let me know if you find something suspicious 

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Jean-Martin

Nothing looks odd in the syslog.  Sorry.

Hrm. Did you run preclear on any of the drives before using them in the array?

 

And no, that is NOT normal.

 

Using 3 WD EADS drives (2 data 1 parity), a parity check takes around 430 minutes, and slightly longer than that for a parity build (~ 465 minutes).

 

Using 3 WD EADS drives (3 data), and a Seagate for parity, a parity check takes around 430 minutes, and a bit longer than that for a parity build (~ 495 minutes).

No, I didn't run preclear before installing the drives.

 

I Removed the drives from the manufacturer's packaging, install a jumper on pin 7&8 and installed the drives in my case.  I formatted both data drives in the GUI interface as requested and started the parity sync.

 

Now I'm at 69% since 2 days.  Do you suggest to stop it, do a preclear on all drives and restart the process?  I only have 1 movie on each drives at this time for testing so not a big deal.

 

My first thought was a wrong setting in the BIOS.  I disabled all IDE options and the SATA 3.0.

 

Regarding the preclear function, I just want to make sure to do the right thing:

 

1) Stop the array

2) CD /boot

3) preclear_disk.sh /dev/hdk

 

Is that correct?

 

Thx,

 

J-M

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding the preclear function, I just want to make sure to do the right thing:

 

1) Stop the array

2) CD /boot

3) preclear_disk.sh /dev/hdk

 

Is that correct?

 

Thx,

 

J-M

It will not allow a pre-clear of any disk asigned to the array, so the answer to your question is "it depends"

 

Also, IDE devices are hda, hdb, hdc, etc...  SATA devices typically show as sda sdb sdc etc...

Unless you are in an IDE emulation mode, you should NOT see /dev/hdk.  (and there is absolutely no reason to be in an IDE emulation mode.  It ONLY is in the BIOS for legacy windows OS since they have no SATA drivers needed to talk to modern drives)

 

To be honest, I'm very confused about the synthax to run the preclear 

 

What I can see now on my screen is: root@tower:/boot#

 

I have 3 SATA drives actually all connected to my MB.

 

 

 

To be honest, I'm very confused about the synthax to run the preclear 

 

What I can see now on my screen is: root@tower:/boot#

 

I have 3 SATA drives actually all connected to my MB.

Have you assigned any of them to your unRAID array using its management interface?

 

If yes... you cannot clear them... the program is designed to prevent you from accidentally clearing your precious data on disks already assigned to the array.

 

If they are not assigned to the array, the syntax is:

preclear_disk.sh /dev/sdX

where sdX is the three character device designation for the disk to be cleared.

 

To see the three letter device names, type

ls -l /dev/disk/by-id

 

Yes, they are already assigned.  Can I unassigned them and perform the preclear after that?

 

As long as there is no data you wish to keep.  Clearing them will erase any existing data.

I got the error: Clearing will not be performed

 

I tried for all drives and got the same errror.

 

See picture of the screen attaches.

You just need to learn how to read..

 

It says answer "Yes" (with a capital "Y" and lower case "es") , not answer "Y"

 

It wants to make sure you really are typing in a response, not just accidentally hitting a key.

 

Try again, answering with the three letter word "Yes"

 

Joe L.

 

 

Started to clear the parity drive now and everything looks ok under the ''Pre-Read'' stage.  The reading speed is going from 35MB/s to 64MB/s which I assume is ok?

 

I will post the results for the first drive.

 

Thanks for your help!

BTW, I plan to buy a WD black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM for my parity drive.  All 19 other drives will be WD20EARS.

 

Is it a good idea?

 

Started to clear the parity drive now and everything looks ok under the ''Pre-Read'' stage.  The reading speed is going from 35MB/s to 64MB/s which I assume is ok?

 

I will post the results for the first drive.

 

Something is not right.

WD20EARS should start the pre-reading with over 110 or even 120 MB/s

 

Since you have Norco 4220 and motherboard with SATA 6 Gbit ports I want to ask what kind of cable are you using to connect them - is it brand name or it is from China (Ebay...)

I use a Norco C-SFF8087-D (0.5m SFF-8087 to Four SATA Reverse Breakout Cable.

 

 

Do you have something better to suggest than the Norco?

 

To perform the Preclear on my second drive, I will use a regular SATA cable to see if there's a difference for the speed.

I just stop the preclear operation because it was too long  .  I removed the parity drive from the case and connected it direcly to the MB with a regular sata cable.  Both data disks are disconnected. 

 

I restarted the preclear operation and now I have an average of 110 MB/s of reading

 

So, I can see 2 problems: the Norco cable or the PCB from the Norco case.

 

Any suggestion?

 

 

Still under the ''Preclear'' operation after 21 hours!!!  Everything looks good.  I'm in the ''Post-Read'' stage (64%).

 

I can believe I have to do that for all of my drives  :'(

Still under the ''Preclear'' operation after 21 hours!!!  Everything looks good.  I'm in the ''Post-Read'' stage (64%).

 

I can believe I have to do that for all of my drives  :'(

You don't.

 

The alternative is to have the server off-line for 8 hours or more while it clears a drive.  (Wait until your family gets used to it being there... 8 hours will seem like forever)

 

The alternative is to find out either in those 8 hours of down time, or soon after when files are being written, that the drive suffers an early mechanical failure. 

 

So... you don't have to pre-clear the drives... but... it does have its benefits.

 

Please note: you can pre-clear more than one drive at a time.  (Just use multiple telnet sessions or multiple virtual consoles)

 

Joe L.