Unraid using only 3 disks in array of 24

[mbuboltz]

I have Unraid setup and I have 24 disks in my Unraid Pool. It seems that Unraid is favoring the first 3 drives and only using them. It is set to use the disk with the most free space and I'm not sure why it is not listening. Any help would be appreciated :-) 

 

 

Thanks

[trurl]

2 hours ago, mbuboltz said:

It is set to use the disk with the most free space

What exactly are you referring to when you say "It" here? Each user share has its own setting for allocation method.

 

Go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete Diagnostics ZIP file to your NEXT post in this thread.

[mbuboltz]

I have attached the diag file. I just had a drive fail but I know it doesn't have to do with it because the drive was empty and this issue has been going on since installation. I have set the share to use Most Free.

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2020 by mbuboltz
removed upload

[trurl]

Since your first 3 disks are much larger than the others then I expect them to be used when you set a share to Most Free since they obviously have the most free space.

 

I personally recommend the default setting of Highwater. With so much free space on your first 3 disks those would still get used first, but disk1 would be used mostly until it gets half full.

 

Most Free can make Unraid constantly switch between disks when they have similar amounts of free space. This will slow things down and keep more disks spinning.

 

Highwater is the default for good reason. It is a compromise between spreading files to multiple drives "eventually", without constantly switching between disks.

 

Also noticed you have your system and domains shares on the array. It is better for these (and appdata) to be all on cache and stay on cache so your dockers and VMs will perform better and not keep array disks spinning. Since mover can't move open files there are several steps required to get these moved to cache. Let me know if you want to work on that.

[mbuboltz]

I feel so dumb now lol I didn't even consider the size of the first 3 disks when choosing most free. I will switch that back. I would be interested in moving them to cache I'm just concerned that I won't have enough space on my cache disk. Is there a way to make my 2nd cache disk "an array" instead of a mirror?

[trurl]

2 hours ago, mbuboltz said:

I have 24 disks

Do you expect to need all that capacity soon? I always say each additional disk is an additional point of failure. With so many data disks I definitely recommend a 2nd parity disk.

 

8 minutes ago, mbuboltz said:

enough space on my cache disk

Depends on how you use cache. You already have appdata on cache, that will be the largest of the 3 "cache-prefer" shares. system share shouldn't take much space, docker and libvirt images are set to 20G and 1G respectively and that is all that should be needed. domains share depends on how much space you need for your VM OS vdisks.

 

The other shares shouldn't keep things on cache, and you might even consider not caching some of them. If you have large data transfers to do, cache can just get in the way since those have to be moved to the array eventually, and mover works better during idle time. You can't move to the slower array as fast as you can write to the faster cache, so for large transfers, don't cache.

 

With 224G cache, I think that should be enough unless you expect to write more than 200G per day on a continual basis, and if you do, you can just not cache some of it. Just consider when the faster cache writes are really beneficial and only cache those shares. For example, I have a share for backups of my PC. Those are scheduled unattended processes and I don't care how fast they get written since I am asleep, so they go directly to the array.

[trurl]

And I notice many of your disks are relatively small. Possibly they are disks you already had so you decided to put them in too. Maybe they are getting a little old.

 

In order to reliably rebuild every bit of a missing disk, Unraid must be able to reliably read every bit of parity PLUS every bit of ALL other disks. You don't want unreliable disks in your server.

 

I am not inclined to study the SMART reports of so many disks. On the Dashboard page, do any of your disks have SMART warnings (thumbs down icon)?

[mbuboltz]

Maybe I'll take them out until they are needed then. All of the SMART reports say they test good. They may be small but when you put them all together you get a good amount of space 😉

 

I have been having a lot of problems with networking on Unraid I'm hoping they release some fixes on the next update 😀

 

How do I go about moving system? I know with the appdata I can just disable docker and have the mover move it but not sure how I can move system. 

[trurl]

Just now, mbuboltz said:

How do I go about moving system? I know with the appdata I can just disable docker and have the mover move it but not sure how I can move system. 

Settings - Docker, disable. Same for Settings - VM Manager.

Set system and domains shares to cache-prefer.

Main - Array Operation - Move Now

Wait for it to complete and post new diagnostics.

[mbuboltz]

Here is the new diag file. Looks like everything moved properly... This message I'm getting from docker is new and it was not there before I changed anything.

internal-diagnostics-20200723-1842.zip

[trurl]

Is that the latest diagnostics? Those diagnostics don't have the cache settings for domains and system shares that I instructed. And they have Dockers and VMs enabled. Did you change these after moving but before getting diagnostics? Also, domains share is still on the array. Do you actually have any VMs?

 

Don't worry about docker image for now.

[mbuboltz]

My domains share would put me over capacity on my cache drive as my domains share is around 600gb. I used cache prefer than after it moved over I changed it to cache only... Should I keep it on cache prefer? I disabled VM's and Docker swapped the settings, ran the mover, then turned them back on.

[trurl]

Go to Settings - Docker, disable dockers and delete docker image from that same page. Then Enable dockers to recreate docker image.

The Previous Apps feature on the Apps page will reinstall your dockers just as they were.

 

Not sure why you would need 600G for domains. You really only need to give the VMs space for their OS. They can access the rest of the Unraid storage as needed on the virtual network.

[mbuboltz]

Will they bring over all the changes I made on the docker config page as well or will i have to remap everything when setting back up the docker?

 

Not sure how to setup web and application servers over a network share in Ubuntu Server (No GUI) otherwise I would do it like you say.

[trurl]

8 minutes ago, trurl said:

just as they were

 

[mbuboltz]

Thank you so much for all your help!