Hello,

 

I'm only about 36 hours into owning/running unRaid. Yesterday, I fired up my system for the first time with 3 x 2GB drives. It took the better part of 8 hours for unRaid to create the parity drive and make the other 2 drives available.

 

I have 4 more 2GB and 2 1GB Drives I want to add. I've scanned through the posts to see if this has been asked, but I'm still not clear.

 

My first attempt to add disk was inserting up all of them at once, booting up the server, stopping the array and adding all the drives at once. My system disapeared and I could no longer access the web GUI. When I went downstairs, each of the drive lights in my populated drive bays were blinking red?

 

I wasn't sure if this was normal, so I forced my system to reboot. This time, I stopped the array and added only 1, 2GB drive.  That was about 5 hours ago. I still can't access the web GUI and I'm not sure if I did something wrong?

 

I've never used disk in an array before. How long does it normally take to add disk? I assume that if I add all my disk at once, it could take days???

 

The 7, 2TB drives are new and the 2, 1TB drives have no data on them. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

e

on the new drives, did you run the preclear script (written by Joe L) or did you just pop it into the array and letting unRAID handle the preclearing?

 

While unRAID does the clearing of the disk, the array is unavailable. Takes awhile to write Zeros to the disk.

 

You might want to read the threads dealing with preclear script for additional information.

Hello,

 

I'm only about 36 hours into owning/running unRaid. Yesterday, I fired up my system for the first time with 3 x 2GB drives. It took the better part of 8 hours for unRaid to create the parity drive and make the other 2 drives available. The two dries should have been available as soon as you formatted them.

The 8 hours to create parity calculations is very normal.   Writing to the disks at 100MB/s would take 10 seconds to write a Gigabyte, and with 2TB drives 20,000 seconds (5 1/2 hours) to write 2000 Gigabytes (2TB).  Most people do not get 100MB/s parity calc speeds, so 8 hours sounds about right.

I have 4 more 2GB and 2 1GB Drives I want to add. I've scanned through the posts to see if this has been asked, but I'm still not clear.

 

My first attempt to add disk was inserting up all of them at once, booting up the server, stopping the array and adding all the drives at once.

That is correct.  You can physicaly add them all at the same time.

My system disapeared and I could no longer access the web GUI. When I went downstairs, each of the drive lights in my populated drive bays were blinking red?

It sounds as if your motherboard BIOS tried to help you and assigned one of the new drives as the boot device.   Did unRAID boot at all?  If not, check your BIOS settings.   Do you see the disks in the BIOS?   If so, good.  Verify the flash drive is still the boot drive and you'll probably be fine.

I wasn't sure if this was normal, so I forced my system to reboot. This time, I stopped the array and added only 1, 2GB drive.  That was about 5 hours ago. I still can't access the web GUI and I'm not sure if I did something wrong?

The new drive is probably assigned as the boot drive.  Again, the BIOS is trying to help you, but actually not.

I've never used disk in an array before. How long does it normally take to add disk? I assume that if I add all my disk at once, it could take days???

The 7, 2TB drives are new and the 2, 1TB drives have no data on them. Any suggestions are welcome.

When you reboot, the array should come up on-line.  The newly added drives will not be part of the protected array and not show up until you assign them on the devices page.

 

If you have already assigned a parity drive, then the new drives must be cleared before use.  You can pre-clear them yourself, OR you can let the unRAID array do it for you.

 

If you clear them yourself, using the preclear_disk.sh script, then the downtime of the array will be just a few minutes.  

 

If you do not pre-clear the disks, then the unRAID array will clear them for you, but it will be off-line during the process, and the server will not be available for 8 or more hours.

 

I strongly suggest using the preclear_disk.sh script as it also exercises the disk to test for early failures.  It takes about 30 hours for a 2TB drive, but your

array is online during the process, so you can use it as normal during the clearing process.  You can also pre-clear multiple drives at the same time.

 

So... your experience has not been normal.   It sounds as if your server did not boot the unRAID OS after adding the disks.

 

Joe L.

Hello,

 

I started the preclear script about 13 hours ago on 1 of my 2TB drives. My putty window indicates that it is currently on step 2 of 10 and at 36% complete? Should one 2TB drive take that long to prepare? Or, did I miss a step?

 

e

Totally normal, takes a loooong time. And I've only done 1.5TB, no 2TB drives yet

I think a typical preclear on a 2TB green drive can range anywhere from 24 to 30 hours.

Thanks Guys. At least now I'm warned. Just checked and I'm not at 23:27:25 and counting. At least I'm on step 10 of 10 and 37% complete.

 

I've learned my lesson not to run putty from my laptop. Next time, I'll run it from a server console and connect and disconnect through VNC to monitor progress.

 

The last question is. I have 3 more 2TB drives, 2 more 1TB drives and 3 750GB drives I may also use. I'll probably start with the 2TB drives as the smaller ones will eventually just be taking up necessary space. What is the best process to pre-clear multiple disk?  Do I run mutiple putty sessions? Or, am I better to pre-clear and add, 1 disk at a time.

 

WRT my comment about running putty from a server console. I did read a thread about installing something that allows you to connect to putty and reconnect to the same session later on. Does this really work?

 

e

 

Where can I find the preclear_disk.sh script?

 

Dave

Preclear

Where can I find the preclear_disk.sh script?

 

Dave

Attached to the first post in this thread that describes it. 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

 

Also check out this second thread that describes how to interpret its results:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=4068.0

Personally and I do mean personally you should always run that preclear script on every drive. It beats the drives up some and you can use your array while its doing its thing. After you add your new drive to the array its nearly instantly available after some formatting and array setup is complete.

 

For some reason I have 36-37 hours in my memory for a 2TB drive.

I have 7 2TB Samsung Eco drives. I think they are an odd RPM like 5400. One drive did take me about 37 hours.

 

Good memory!

 

Is there a way to start a batch process to pre-clear mutliple disk at once? Or would slow the process to the point where you'd be better to do them one at a time?

 

Thank you everyone for your help.

 

e

Yes, you can preclear up to 6 drives simultaneously.  On the system console or telnet, just start up the first preclear, then press Alt-F2 to switch to a new login screen.  From there you can start up the second preclear, then rinse and repeat (Alt-F3, Alt-F4, etc.) for up to 6 consoles/drives.  Once they are all started you can again hit Alt-F1, Alt-F2, etc. to check on their progress.

 

Also, FYI, the console screen will automatically go blank after a few minutes of inactivity.  This is normal.  Just press a button to wake it back up (I always press one of the arrow keys because I'm paranoid and don't want to mess anything up).

When I first got my machine and the array was not online since I was preclearing my first 3 drives I precleared all 3 at the same time. Of course it felt like forever, but the machine had nothing else to do for 30+ hours and I was impatient. LOL

 

Now with my array online I typically only run one at a time just to keep the load down and I guess its a mental thing that I'm not beating up the machine. As well I'm normally only updating one drive at a time anyways so it makes perfect sense.

I have 7 2GB Samsung Eco drives. I think they are an odd RPM like 5400. One drive did take me about 37 hours.

 

You should replace that 14GB of storage with a single 16GB USB Thumb Drive.  It would free up 7 drive ports for larger drives.

Now with my array online I typically only run one at a time just to keep the load down and I guess its a mental thing that I'm not beating up the machine. As well I'm normally only updating one drive at a time anyways so it makes perfect sense.

 

Preclearing multiple drives simultaneously doesn't beat up the machine.  In fact, if you don't trust your machine to spin and read/write all the drives at the same time then you shouldn't trust it with your data!  After all, how else would your rebuild from parity without spinning all the drives?

 

Personally, I would rather preclear as many drives simultaneously as possible so as to save time and power (since the server can then be powered off for a while after they are done).  If you run your server 24/7 anyways, then it wouldn't make any difference.

True, but like I said its just a mental thing for me. LOL