Unassigned Devices - Managing Disk Drives and Remote Shares Outside of The Unraid Array


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9 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

Is this delay loading the main page or for the UD animation? I have 35 UDs on one of my servers and the main page loads instantly, UD animation takes a couple of seconds before it displays the devices.

UD animation and it can vary in length of time. Fastest is usually 5-6 seconds, average maybe around 8 - 10 and the extreme would be 15-20 seconds.

 

The UnRAID main page loads instantly.

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2 hours ago, Lev said:

UD animation and it can vary in length of time. Fastest is usually 5-6 seconds, average maybe around 8 - 10 and the extreme would be 15-20 seconds.

 

The UnRAID main page loads instantly.

<step on soap box>

Keep in mind that the Unraid array disk configuration is static and doesn't change until it is stopped.  UD has to deal with hot plugged disks, devices being dynamically mounted/unmounted, and keep the status of remote mounts current because thay can come and go if there are network issues.

 

UD was designed as a means to hot plug disks and make it easy to do backups and copy files to the array.  Over time users wanted UD to mount devices for VMs, Dockers, and heavy downloading schemes - not really what it was designed for.  If you have a lot of disks in UD, it's time to re-think your needs.  The pool feature of Unraid 6.9 allows you to have many disks in separate or combined pools with the additional support for array disk spin down and temperature monitoring.

 

UD does a refresh when events occur that affect the status shown on the UI.  Such as a disk being hot plugged.  While it might be nice to have updated used and free status, disk temperatures, and open files real time, UD was not intended to do that and if that is what you need, put the disks in the array pool.

 

That being said, a lot has been done to make UD more responsive.  Disk temperatures are refreshed every 2 minutes, not every refresh of the UI.  Getting disk parameters with commands like 'df' have been timed out because when a remote share goes off-line, the 'df' command hangs on all devices.

</step off soap box>

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I think you have done a fantastic job with UD. It has expanded to be a very powerful addition to unraid and I can firmly say that I would not of been able to move to unraid without it. The ability to use my old drives with UD while setting up unraid was a make or break point for me.

 

The new cache pools features should really expand the capabilities of unraid, I am really looking forward to them. If they add ZFS as well that should really blur the lines between freeNAS / unraid and make unraid the de-facto option IMHO.

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New release of UD.

  • The SSD partition alignment is now compatible with Unraid 6.9.
  • Fixed error message when trying to get disk rotational status from /sys/block/sdX/queue/rotational.
  • Added nvme devices to rotational status check.
  • Remove refresh when changing 'Auto Mount' switch on disk drives.
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11 hours ago, dlandon said:

While it might be nice to have updated used and free status, disk temperatures, and open files real time, UD was not intended to do that and if that is what you need

Completely understand, can't blame a guy for asking ;)

 

11 hours ago, dlandon said:

The pool feature of Unraid 6.9 allows you to have many disks in separate or combined pools with the additional support for array disk spin down and temperature monitoring.

That is indeed what I plan to use as soon as everything is working correctly with the multiple pools.

 

P.S. I sent some beer money your way yesterday to show my appreciation for all the work you have done and continue to do on this, and encourage anyone who relies on UD to do the same.

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58 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

That is indeed what I plan to use as soon as everything is working correctly with the multiple pools.

I installed a new nvme, formatted it to the 1MiB partition allignment and moved my dockers and VMs to that drive.  Works very well.  My Windows VMs are used as desktop computers, and I do notice an improvement in performance.  I will leave my cache drive with the partition alignment at 4k for a bit until the kinks are worked out so I can roll back to 6.8 if needed.

 

1 hour ago, johnnie.black said:

P.S. I sent some beer money your way yesterday to show my appreciation for all the work you have done and continue to do on this, and encourage anyone who relies on UD to do the same.

Thank you.

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may a question, is there a way to check if the disks are already formatted in this way ?

 

i switched now a nvme drive (VM's) to a 2nd cache pool drive, just assigned new pool, assigned the disk.

 

now, all files keep there (no formatting question), all VM's working fine after adjusting new path to vdisk.

 

so either i missunderstood (older formatted disks are not compatible with beta .25 and up) or my disks where already properly formatted ?

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4 minutes ago, alturismo said:

may a question, is there a way to check if the disks are already formatted in this way ?

 

i switched now a nvme drive (VM's) to a 2nd cache pool drive, just assigned new pool, assigned the disk.

 

now, all files keep there (no formatting question), all VM's working fine after adjusting new path to vdisk.

 

so either i missunderstood (older formatted disks are not compatible with beta .25 and up) or my disks where already properly formatted ?

Go to a command line and enter:

fdisk /dev/sdX
or
fdisk /dev/nvmeX

You will get:

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1       2048 1000215215 1000213168  477G 83 Linux

The boot start should be 2048 for 1MiB alignment.  If it is 64, the alignment is 4k.

 

SSDs formatted in 6.8 will be compatible with 6.9, but not the other way around.

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Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x7aff88bb

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1         64 1000215215 1000215152  477G 83 Linux

Command (m for help): 

so, this is my current 2nd cache pool device i use, like u described its not the 1mb allignment

 

so your suggestion would be, backup, format, copy back ?

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Just now, alturismo said:

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x7aff88bb

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1         64 1000215215 1000215152  477G 83 Linux

Command (m for help): 

so, this is my current 2nd cache pool device i use, like u described its not the 1mb allignment

 

so your suggestion would be, backup, format, copy back ?

Yes, as long as you don't see the need to roll back to 6.8.

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So, I started seeing this error this afternoon in the status bar of my browser, any ideas what I should look at?
 

 Array Started • Warning: in_array() expects parameter 2 to be array, null given in /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/unassigned.devices/include/lib.php on line 1645

 

Thanks in advance!

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16 minutes ago, Keek Uras said:

So, I started seeing this error this afternoon in the status bar of my browser, any ideas what I should look at?
 

 Array Started • Warning: in_array() expects parameter 2 to be array, null given in /usr/local/emhttp/plugins/unassigned.devices/include/lib.php on line 1645

 

Thanks in advance!

Post diagnostics.

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21 hours ago, dlandon said:

Yes, as long as you don't see the need to roll back to 6.8.

ok, i tried now to format the disk new to get the new 1mb allignement, but even after format its still on Start 64

 

what did i do

 

stop the array, change FS to BTRFS to force a format, start array, format to BTRFS, stop the array, change FS to xfs again, start array, format.

 

disk is blank now as expected but still on the same allignement as before, may a hint what i ve done wrong ? beta .25, do i have to format in a different approach ? through UAD somehow ?

 

result after formatting

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x7aff88bb

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1         64 1000215215 1000215152  477G 83 Linux

 

Ok, after using UAD to format the disk it is now on the Start 2048, so Unraid still formats different, seems i missunderstood.

Edited by alturismo
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2 hours ago, alturismo said:

ok, i tried now to format the disk new to get the new 1mb allignement, but even after format its still on Start 64

 

what did i do

 

stop the array, change FS to BTRFS to force a format, start array, format to BTRFS, stop the array, change FS to xfs again, start array, format.

 

disk is blank now as expected but still on the same allignement as before, may a hint what i ve done wrong ? beta .25, do i have to format in a different approach ? through UAD somehow ?

 

result after formatting


Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x7aff88bb

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1         64 1000215215 1000215152  477G 83 Linux

 

Ok, after using UAD to format the disk it is now on the Start 2048, so Unraid still formats different, seems i missunderstood.

Are you on 6,9 beta 25?  Unraid will format the same 1MiB alignment only on that version.

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14 minutes ago, dlandon said:

Are you on 6,9 beta 25?  Unraid will format the same 1MiB alignment only on that version.

yes i am but unfortunal it didnt ... stayed here on the same 64k Start as posted above

 

after mounting the disk in UAD again, destroy and formatted with UAD it is now like you described i hope ;)

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1       2048 1000215215 1000213168  477G 83 Linux

but i also understood that new formatted disks in unraid will also be formatted in this way, but nope ... not here actually.

 

i still have my main cache drive todo as this is also still on the 64k start point, i can test again in unraid if it helps ...

may a procedure howto force a format in unraid ?

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5 minutes ago, alturismo said:

yes i am but unfortunal it didnt ... stayed here on the same 64k Start as posted above

 

after mounting the disk in UAD again, destroy and formatted with UAD it is now like you described i hope ;)


Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.96 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 950 PRO 512GB               
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device         Boot Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1       2048 1000215215 1000213168  477G 83 Linux

but i also understood that new formatted disks in unraid will also be formatted in this way, but nope ... not here actually.

 

i still have my main cache drive todo as this is also still on the 64k start point, i can test again in unraid if it helps ...

may a procedure howto force a format in unraid ?

I formatted a nvme drive and it worked fine for me.  You should post this on the 6.9 Beta 25 forum if it's not working for you.

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5 hours ago, alturismo said:

stop the array, change FS to BTRFS to force a format, start array, format to BTRFS, stop the array, change FS to xfs again, start array, format.

You need to completely wipe the device, e.g., with blkdiscard, or removr the partition, if you just change the filesystem Unraid will use the existing partition when re-formatting.

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