i added another 2x2tb green drives to my new unraid box but i seem to have forgotten how long it takes to clear them. after 10 hours there only 12% done. i should have done the preclear proceedure. is there a way i can stop the standard clearing proceedure now and start over using the preclear proceedure. i dont want m array offline for a 4 days. thx

i added another 2x2tb green drives to my new unraid box but i seem to have forgotten how long it takes to clear them. after 10 hours there only 12% done. i should have done the preclear proceedure. is there a way i can stop the standard clearing proceedure now and start over using the preclear proceedure. i dont want m array offline for a 4 days. thx

Control-C will stop the program.

(Hold the control key down and then simultaneously press the letter "c")

 

Edit: sorry, I did not see you were using emhttp to do the clearing.  That is very different.

 

I honestly do not know what will happen if you kill emhttp in this situation.  You will probably not do any harm, but the new disks will not be pre-cleared, and when you re-start emhttp and re-start the array it will just begin the pre-clear once more.  Not sure if there is an easy way out short of killing emhttp, re-starting it, using the "devices" page to un-assign the new disks, initializing a new configuration invalidating parity, then starting the array without the new disks and completely calculating parity once more on the new array.

 

Now you know why I wrote the pre-clear script... (And I did it when the biggest disk was 750Gig)

 

Joe L.

You might want to look in your syslog.  10 hours is way too long for a 2TB drive for JUST clearing.  Might be something wrong.

ill have to look when i get home but im acually clearing 2 drives at the same time so 4tb total

ill have to look when i get home but im acually clearing 2 drives at the same time so 4tb total

 

^^^^ may be the problem.

I believe they were reports regarding this.

oh really so what would be the best way to stop the proceedure now? can i do it using the web based screen on my windows desktop or would i have to do it on the server iteslf or just power down manually using the front power button? thx

How much RAM do you have in your server?  I believe you need about a gig per preclear to be on the safe side, though you may be able to get away with less.  The larger the drive, the more RAM is needed.  With enough RAM, you should be able to preclear up to 6 drives simultaneously.  Joe L can speak to this with more experience.

 

I've been able to preclear two or three 2 TB drives (WD EARS w/ jumper) on just 2 GB of RAM on my test server.  I believe the server wasn't doing anything else, though, so that may factor into it.  I haven't tried any more than that.

oh really so what would be the best way to stop the proceedure now? can i do it using the web based screen on my windows desktop or would i have to do it on the server iteslf or just power down manually using the front power button? thx

I think either is as good as the other.  Your array is stopped, so killing power is as good as anything (and probably easiest for you)

 

As I said earlier, when you power up it will want to start the server, and you'll be in exactly the same shape as now.  the only out I can think of is to log in on the command line and with the array stopped, and with the new drives still assigned, to type

initconfig

to initialize a new disk configuration.  

Respond to its prompt with "Yes"  (Capital "Y" and lower case "es" )

Do not answer "y" or "Y" or "yes" or "Yeah" or "YES" or by nodding your head up and down.  Only "Yes" is a valid response.

This will immediately invalidate parity, and all your disk indicators will turn blue, and you'll be able to press "Start" and it will begin a new full initial parity calculation based on the "new" disk configuration.

 

Your array will be online during the initial parity calculation, and you'll be able to get to your files/movies/etc, but you'll no have parity protection until the parity calculation is completed.   The new drives will not be cleared if you do this, since there is no need when parity is not yet calculated.  They will still need to be formatted and you should see a button for that.  You can format them even while the parity check is occurring.

 

This technique assumes all your data drives are healthy, since if one of them had failed, its data would be lost when you type "initconfig"

 

Joe L.

i only have 1 gig of ram. ill see when i get home how much time is remaining and figure if i should restart or not. thx for the replies

How much RAM do you have in your server?  I believe you need about a gig per preclear to be on the safe side, though you may be able to get away with less.  The larger the drive, the more RAM is needed.  With enough RAM, you should be able to preclear up to 6 drives simultaneously.  Joe L can speak to this with more experience.

 

I've been able to preclear two or three 2 TB drives (WD EARS w/ jumper) on just 2 GB of RAM on my test server.  I believe the server wasn't doing anything else, though, so that may factor into it.  I haven't tried any more than that.

yes but he is NOT pre-clearing the drives, he was letting emhttp do it for him.  It therefore has nothing to do with the preclear_disk.sh script and its use of large block sizes in the "dd" command.

 

You should be able to clear multiple disks with 1Gig of ram.  (or even with 512Meg) when it is emhttp that is doing it.

Ah, right, forgot about that.

so i powered down using the front power button on my case. rebooted and logged in using my desktop into the gui and unassigned the 2 new drives. i can use the server again and of course my 2 new drives are not usable. how should i proceed now? should i be running a parity check now before i do anything further od should i start preclearing the new discs first? will it be faster either way? thx

I would preclear both disks and run a parity check.  I believe you can do all of this simultaneously (1 gig of RAM should be enough to preclear two disks at once, right Joe?).

 

I'm not sure if you necessarily need to do a parity check, but it never hurts anything.  If you have unMenu installed, run the parity verify instead.