Parity drive died during a data drive replacement[SOLVED]


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Hey all,

 

A minor issue, but one that has caused me to haul on the brakes until I get advice!

 

I pulled a 2tb data drive (after removing it from the array) and replaced it with an 8tb unit. Unfortunately on power up, my older seagate 8tb drive which is the parity drive was doing the good old spin up and down routine, and took forever to come up. It does come up then throws read errors and goes offline. SMART stupidly considers the drive healthy, but it obviously is sick.

 

I am so far not too concerned, as I think I can just "go back" to having the original 2tb drive back in, and replace the parity drive with my new 8tb drive.

 

But, I also think I need to convince unraid that the 2tb drive belongs in the array so it doesn't try to virtualize it with a dead parity drive?! After removing the 2tb drive from the array, it has been untouched.

 

I'm running the latest stable release (checked for updates prior to this excitement and I was already up to date)/

 

What do I need to do to achieve this? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Edited by unravelit
Solved!
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15 minutes ago, trurl said:

Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, what exactly do you mean by "removing it from the array"?

got it - I was following the usual steps for replacing a drive - I did this:

Stop the array

Unassign the old drive if still assigned (to unassign, set it to No Device)

 

then did a clean shutdown.

 

Diag zip added. It took a while to boot, and the parity drive is now not even showing up. Looks like it went from sick to dead...

 

 

stuff2-diagnostics-20191108-1140.zip

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Haven't looked at the diagnostics yet.

49 minutes ago, unravelit said:

Stop the array

Unassign the old drive if still assigned (to unassign, set it to No Device)

OK. That isn't the way I would normally use the term "remove" when speaking about the array. If I said I removed a drive, I would mean I had shrunk the array by New Config without the drive and rebuilt parity.

 

Until there is an actual change in disk assignments the drive hasn't been removed in any sense. It is not strictly necessary to unassign the old drive. Simply assigning the replacement to the same slot and starting the array will begin the rebuild.

 

If you have not yet assigned the replacement, then as far as Unraid is concerned, you can simply assign the old drive back to the same slot and start the array.

 

 

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I think you should be able to simply assign the original drive to slot2, and the new disk to parity, and then start the array to begin rebuilding parity. If it complains about that then maybe you would have to New Config to get the assignments like you want. But it shouldn't matter since the end result will be to rebuild parity, which is what you want anyway. It is only if you were trying to get it to rebuild a data disk that you would have to do something more complicated.

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Apologies, I meant to say this in my first post but got distracted.... Originally I had no idea the parity drive was sick, so had assigned the new disk to slot 2 and started the array.

 

It all looked right and was working, but I noted the rebuild was going to take 200+ days, the write speed was only around 400kb/sec. That is when I found the parity drive was dying - constantly spinning down and restarting.

 

I stopped the rebuild.

 

Now I am tempted to put back the original drive in slot 2, but I am thinking that unraid won't know what to do with it.

 

Cheers

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1 minute ago, unravelit said:

Original drive back in slot 2

I assume you mean WD-WCAZA0850387. It is not actually assigned to any slot. That disk looks OK. I guess you were only replacing it in order to upsize?

 

Is your original parity ZA1AGKMJ? I see it briefly in syslog but it can't really communicate and there is no SMART for it. Could just be a bad connection.

 

Post a screenshot of Main - Array Devices just to make sure I fully understand what you have now.

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If we could get SMART for parity and it turned out to be OK then you could just proceed with your original plan. Check all connections, SATA and power, both ends. Make sure to check any power splitters along the way. Then post another diagnostic.

 

If there really was a problem with parity, Unraid may have been able to tell you this before you tried to replace the other disk. Did you check the Dashboard for any SMART warnings?

 

Do you have Notifications configured to alert you immediately by email or other agent when Unraid detects a problem?

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3 minutes ago, trurl said:

If we could get SMART for parity and it turned out to be OK then you could just proceed with your original plan. Check all connections, SATA and power, both ends. Make sure to check any power splitters along the way. Then post another diagnostic.

 

If there really was a problem with parity, Unraid may have been able to tell you this before you tried to replace the other disk. Did you check the Dashboard for any SMART warnings?

 

Do you have Notifications configured to alert you immediately by email or other agent when Unraid detects a problem?

I have checked and rechecked the parity drive connections.  I will do it one more time :D

 

I have email notifications set up for immediate alert - the parity drive gave me an overtemp warning (it got up to 46 degrees) today, and does on occasion when the weather is hot and no air con on. No other issues reported. I had received a normal temp alert before doing the changes.

 

Prior to the change over work, all drives were "thumbs up" for SMART.

 

I would try it in an external bay to try and pull smart but the one I have only supports 2tb max.

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OK, let's proceed without the original parity and maybe later you can see if it can be made to work. Maybe it really did just decide to die at this inopportune moment.

 

Go to Tools - New Config, assign the original disk2 to slot2, and the new disk to parity. Starting the array will begin parity rebuild. If it offers to format anything, DON'T.

 

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OK, so I pulled the little proliant out and unplugged and REALLY plugged everything back in - it is an annoyingly tight case. Aaaaand.... the parity drive is back - well, at least it is visible but not assigned. And not misbehaving right now (the spin up/down business) - so I grabbed a diag

 

 

My face is red, as you can't see it. I was sure everything was fine, and have "checked" everything several times. Just ... not well.

 

stuff2-diagnostics-20191108-1353.zip

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OK, original parity SMART looks OK. Forget about New Config for now.

 

Can you assign that original parity to parity slot, and assign nothing to slot2? If it offers to rebuild parity, don't start the array. If it doesn't want to rebuild parity, start the array and see if you can see the "emulated" disk2 files. The emulated disk is exactly what will be rebuilt when you assign the new disk to slot2.

 

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I tried that, and the parity drive shows up as a blue dot drive "NEW DEVICE"

 

I don't get an option to start the array at all with just the parity drive added as it says

 

"Too many wrong and/or missing disks!"

 

So it sees the parity drive, but doesn't seem to know it is meant to be the parity drive...

Screenshot 2019-11-09 01.38.15.png

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The only thing New Config does is let you assign the disks however you want, and then optionally (by default) rebuild parity. Check the box saying parity is already valid, then you can run a non-correcting parity check to make sure everything is as expected.

 

You can't really muck it up unless you assign a data disk to the parity slot, or agree to format any disk that has data on it.

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Thanks again for your help so far. All the drives came back looking right... and a non-write parity check is under way (and will take the normal ~19 hrs).

 

All my disks are badly over filled, I know you are not meant to go over ~90 percent, but times are desperate, hence the 8tb upgrade :D

 

Awesome help!1675876365_Screenshot2019-11-0902_25_59.thumb.png.96705b14823bf8fd2adc51b7bef8e6c0.png

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