Failed Format Attempt

[Dvluper]

I'm having trouble with a new drive, keep getting an error even though I am formatting it.

 

"Unmountable: Unsupported Format layout"

 

Note that I have the same exact drive model successfully working in Parity 1 slot.  Let me take you though the steps that worked for every other drive I added.

 

Starting Point

 

I expected that I would need to format the drive, this was what I did for all the other disks, here's a screenshot:

 

> Notice the same 8TB drive model works fine in Parity 1 so I dn't suspect some sort of incompatibility.

 

Format Attempt

 

When I go and attempt the format:

 

It looks like it's working:

 

But fails and goes back to the unmountable state again

 

 

 

Next Steps

What else can I do to fix this or prepare the drive to formatting?

[trurl]

Go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete diagnostics zip file to your NEXT post.

[Dvluper]

Thank you for the tip @Constructor (I'm just getting started with Unraid), attached is the ZIP from an anonymized diagnostics export.

 

I peeked at the files (after copy and attaching) and the disk I'm having trouble with is disk1 sdd.

tower-diagnostics-20200428-0924.zip

Edited April 28, 2020 by Dvluper

[trurl]

Are you trying to use USB drives in the array? Not a good idea. Not a good idea for cache either.

[Dvluper]

Yes, this PC does not have SATA, so I have no choice but to use the USB3 bus. I do have an eSATA port, but I cannot find a way to connect the eSATA to SATA.

 

What other suggestions would you have for a system that has:

• 2 USB 3.0 ports
• 1 eSATA port
• 1 USB 2.0 port (being used for the Unraid USB stick)

My disks:

• 2x - 8TB SATA3 internal drives 
• 2x - 8TB USB external drives
• 4x - 500MB external USB 3.0 high performance (high performance, was original used for Windows to Go hosting)
• 1x -  2TB USB external USB 3.0 high performance (was also originally used for Windows to Go hosting)

[testdasi]

eSATA to SATA adapter / cable can easily be found on Amazon / ebay / alibaba etc.

You will have a bit of work to run the cable but other than that, it should be easy to convert. (will need SATA power separately from the PSU, just like any other SATA drive).

 

Do you have spare PCIe slot?

You could get an HBA / SATA card. There's a topic on here in which johnnie.black did speed test on many adapters (so the natural implication is that they work well to various extents with Unraid).

 

Using USB is the not even the last resort, it should be avoided at all costs.

[trurl]

USB connections in the array or cache, while allowed, are not reliable enough to keep all disks connected all the time. When a disk disconnects in the parity array, it will be disabled and will have to be rebuilt. This will probably be a frequent and recurring problem.

 

If you want to run without parity then it won't matter so much if something disconnects since there is nothing for it to be out-of-sync with.

 

The eSATA might be a good choice for cache then since it won't get disconnected. The only difference between eSATA and SATA is the connector. You just need a cable with eSATA on one end and SATA on the other.

[Vr2Io]

2 hours ago, Dvluper said:

What else can I do to fix this or prepare the drive to formatting?

The problem should be extra system partition in passport USB disk, you should try use "WD SmartWare" to mask that partition. But I don't know why no problem when it be parity disk.

[Dvluper]

Thank you all for the insights, I'm starting to see how I might need to redo this setup. I still have 16 TB running on openmediavault that contains my data, so I have some wiggle room to get this setup working before I make and moves with the data (even though I'm worried that it's not backed up right now)

 

@trurl That makes sense, but I'm not sure where to go from here. I have so many machines I can use for this system, but none of them are tower PCs with PCI or SATA slots. I had high hopes for the eSATA jack instead of USB 3.0, but still havent found an adapter or card I can use.

 

@Benson The drive that is having the problem is not the WD passport disk, it's a brand new internal Kingston 8TB 3.5" HDD. I have a USB 3.1 to SATA 3 cable for it

 

It's probable that the original NTFS partition is causing the problem (I initialized it on a windows machine with NTFS). I did not clean the disk after removing it from the Raspberry Pi4 and openmediavault.

 

@testdasi I did find eSATA cables that have a SATA jack on one end, but that will only work for one drive. I'd need a way to make it work for the 2 internal HDDs. I do want to add more 8TB SATA drives anyways, so I've been looking for ways to attach more to the machine via cards. 

 

Looking at the drivers, there are 2 SATA III options on the motherboard, I'm guessing it's for the eSATA port. Is there a card that will let me attach multiple SATA drives and run it from the eSATA port?

 

The machine itself is a Dell Latitude E6430 i7 8GB RAM and it's only purpose was to replace a Raspberry Pi4 running openmediavault (which worked great with all of these drives).

[Dvluper]

I think I have a solution for the SATA to USB hurdle. I found a 4 bay SATA enclose that lets me use a single eSATA cable.  https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/

[trurl]

Trying to do multiple disks through a single port is going to perform very poorly when multiple disks need to be accessed. And rebuilds, parity checks, access ALL disks simultaneously. Even a simple write to a single disk requires accessing parity and the written disk simultaneously. 

 

If you can't give each disk its own SATA port maybe reconsider not having parity at all. 

 

Whether or not you have parity you still need backups. You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. 

[Vr2Io]

51 minutes ago, Dvluper said:

I think I have a solution for the SATA to USB hurdle. I found a 4 bay SATA enclose that lets me use a single eSATA cable.  https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-ProBox-HF2-SU3S2-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/

You may got problem ( or just not work ) with those box with Unraid, eSATA ( SATA port multiplier ) will only work with limited SATA controller ( Intel SATA controller won't work ). For USB ( actually it is a USB to SATA bridge + SATA multiplier ) would be same.

 

Pls also note on product description, some HDD with "power disable feature" also won't support.

 

My previous build ( 2yrs ago ) was such kind setup ( USB 5 bays enclosure ), it need a suitable firmware to make it work. If you can't fix all problem then it just not work. Pls also note disk can't spindown too.

 

Some new design USB enclosure was a USB hub + multiple USB to SATA bridge, it may have higher compatibility, but it still not a good solution.  

Edited April 28, 2020 by Benson

[Dvluper]

@Benson Thank you for the warning, you just saved me $100. This looks like a loosing battle.

 

I was happy with the the way things worked on openmediavault with all the drives going through the USB 3 bus, so I cant imagine it being worse here for the media server stuff.

 

However, I know that when I start looking at using VM and Docker features, I'll need real SATAIII and SSD-Cache for it to be bearable.

[Vr2Io]

16 minutes ago, Dvluper said:

@Benson Thank you for the warning, you just saved me $100. This looks like a loosing battle.

 

I was happy with the the way things worked on openmediavault with all the drives going through the USB 3 bus, so I cant imagine it being worse here for the media server stuff.

 

However, I know that when I start looking at using VM and Docker features, I'll need real SATAIII and SSD-Cache for it to be bearable.

I think Kingston USB disk problem not hard to solve, it not work just because Unraid was partition aware, only single partition allow on data disk. If problem can't solve, just buy another USB to SATA bridge (single bay) can solve it easy.