Hi guys,

 

I'm a new unRaid user, just bought a pro license and installed the OS.

 

I have 6 TB worth of data that I need to move to the server. I know we can't add HDD's with data in them so I bought 5x2 TB drives (WD EARS, jumpered already but I'm not sure I did it right), Anyway I plugged the drives, formatted them on the server and now it's time to move the data.

 

I want to move the data from the old drives then format the old drives and add them to the server. What would be the best way of doing this ? Can I make shares now then add more drives to the array ?

 

When I first plugged the drives I got the shrinking drive problem due to my Gigabyte mobo, is it OK to keep the shrinking drive ? I just assigned the parity to another drive.

 

When the HDD's are new unRaid takes a long time to build the parity (9 hours) while there's absolutely nothing on the drives. It also gives errors on the parity sync. Is that normal when the HDD's are new ? I see the light is still green so I don't know where's the problem so I can try and fix it.

 

Sorry for all the questions. It's just that this data is important to me and thats why I built an unraid server for protection.

 

Thank you

Ok first off did you run a Preclear on all your drives before building your array?

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

 

Yes you can add shares when ever you like and add drives later too.

 

Now you mentioned have several errors already during the parity build. That does not seem normal at all.

 

When you first set your array up it normally formats then you build your parity. The reason that is important is, it contantly updates your parity drive as you add new information even thou your drives are blank its building a restoreable version so it can return to what is currently on your drives.

 

I can't really comment on the shrinking drive issue you mentioned since I'm not familar with that problem or the solution. Is that the HPA problem?

Do I need to run a preclear ? I thought that unraid does that ?

 

Can I run preclear from the unraid box ?

 

Also, how do I know if I installed the jumpers correctly ?

 

Yes, I mean the HPA problem. Can I leave it be or do I have to correct it.

Hi guys,

 

I'm a new unRaid user, just bought a pro license and installed the OS.

 

I have 6 TB worth of data that I need to move to the server. I know we can't add HDD's with data in them so I bought 5x2 TB drives (WD EARS, jumpered already but I'm not sure I did it right), Anyway I plugged the drives, formatted them on the server and now it's time to move the data.

 

I want to move the data from the old drives then format the old drives and add them to the server. What would be the best way of doing this ? Can I make shares now then add more drives to the array ?

 

When I first plugged the drives I got the shrinking drive problem due to my Gigabyte mobo, is it OK to keep the shrinking drive ? I just assigned the parity to another drive.

You are playing with matches and dynamite.  Yes, you can assign a disk as you did but the first time the drive with the HPA fails, and it WILL eventually fail, the BIOS will pick another disk at random to put the HPA on.  That will then cause the other disk to be a different size and considered invalid by unRAID.  Now, you have two bad drives, and you've lost the data on both of them.

 

Still think it is worth the risk?  Most unRAID owners do not.  Many have replaced the motherboard rather than sit on a ticking time-bomb.

When the HDD's are new unRaid takes a long time to build the parity (9 hours) while there's absolutely nothing on the drives. It also gives errors on the parity sync. Is that normal when the HDD's are new ?

9 hours is quite normal to build parity.  "errors" are "read errors"  Typically unreadable sectors on disks.  By the time you see the error, if unRAID had parity established it would have corrected the un-readable sector by re-constructing it from parity and the other drives and re-writing it to the drive with the un-readable sector.  The SMART firmware on the disk would the re-allocate a sector for the data.

I see the light is still green so I don't know where's the problem so I can try and fix it.

Only "write" errors will take a disk offline and make it have a "red" indicator.

Sorry for all the questions. It's just that this data is important to me and thats why I built an unraid server for protection.

 

Thank you

The preclear_disk.sh script is one I wrote for the unRAID community.  It is a way to exercise the disks and pre-clear them, and identify un-readable sectors BEFORE you put your data on them.  It can be found here:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2817.0

attached to the bottom of the first post in that thread.

 

Joe L.

Then it's a good thing that I asked before moving the data to my array. I will check and see if there's a way to disable the HPA on my BIOS (Gigabyte P35-DS3L).

 

I will pre-clear all the hard drives so I can stress test them and make sure they are working correctly.

 

Is there a way I could know which drive is connected to which port on the motherboard ? I wanted to assign the parity and cache drive to a mobo sata port as I've read it's the best way. Or can I just let it be ? I have 4 SATA ports on the mobo and 8 on the SuperMicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 plugged into a PCI-E x16 port since I don't have PCI-E x8 or x4. The cache drive I know is connected to a mobo port but the parity I'm not sure since they all the same model and brand I don't know which is connected to which.

 

Should I enable the HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability in the BIOS ? How about AHCI ?

 

Also what do you recommend regarding the EARS drives ? They are currently jumpered and running on unRaid 4.6. Should I just upgrade to 4.7 beta and use them without jumpers (precleared with the -A command) ? I'm not sure what is the best way for the future ? I don't have anything on the drives yet so I'm in a stage that I can do anything to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible.

 

Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it.

You could type

 

hdparm -i /dev/sd*

 

which would generate something like this.

 

/dev/sda:  <----First Slot on your Motherboard

 

Model=WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0                    , FwRev=50.0AB50, SerialNo=    WD-WMAZ20201794  <-----Serial Number of your Drive

Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }

RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50

BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?0?

CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=18446744073321613488

IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}

PIO modes:  pio0 pio3 pio4

DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2

UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6

AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled

Drive conforms to: Unspecified:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 

* signifies the current active mode

 

You will probably see something like /dev/sda1: It would be the same serial number because its the first partition of that drive so just skip down to /dev/sdb and so on.

 

Alright thanks for the tip. It turns out my Parity is on a mobo slot but the cache isn't. I'm gonna leave it be for now. I'll probably buy another mobo due to the HPA problem.

 

Thanks for the help guys, reallly appreciate it.

 

Abdulla