3tb drives with 4.7

I know using 3 TB drives with unraid 4.7 is impossible in its fullest capacity but my unraid 4.7 servers are 98% full and I need more space.  I bought a few 3TB drives and precleared them full capacity (I believe it has been a while).  So the question is can I drop those guys in to 4.7 and use them as is for now?  I only have a 2 TB parity drive that I don't think I want to replace right now...  Anyway any ideas or suggestions would greatly be appreciated.  I don't want to invest in 2TB drives considering they are just too small with the limited number of drive spaces...

 

Thanks,

 

Neil

 

I believe you will have to partition the 3TB drive down to a usable size for 4.7. Trying to find where I read this & will update my post once found (if someone does not beat me to it).

 

EDIT* Here is what I was thinking about:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11183.0

Can I set the 3tb drives to the same space as my other 2tb drives so I don't have to replace parity?

 

I am re-reading that linked thread now.

Can I set the 3tb drives to the same space as my other 2tb drives so I don't have to replace parity?

 

I am re-reading that linked thread now.

yes, and the size to be used (number of blocks) is in that thread in a post I made.

I found this: "But to answer your question, the number of sectors in a 2T drive is 3907029168."

 

But that wasn't from you, Joe.  So I am not sure if I have the write place.

 

Can I run the HDparam after preclearing or would I need to re-preclear after the HDParam?

 

Thanks,

 

Neil

 

Preclear must be the absolute last thing that writes to the drive before adding it to the array. Any changes after preclear will invalidate the clearing process.

I think this is for 2.2TB:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=18666.msg166892#msg166892

I have a Western Digital 3TB drive that I am attempting to use as a Parity drive with 2.2TB of usable space using Unraid v4.7. I have looked at other threads such as:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11183.0

 

I am having difficulty using the "--yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing" flag after entering:

 

hdparm

I think you enter it at the same time...

 

hdparm --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing -N p4294963168 /dev/sdX

would I need to re-preclear after the HDParam?

Definately, needs to be re-done after to  be recognized as a valid pre-clear signature...

 

However, the pre-clear signature is not used by unRAID when replacing an existing drive. It is only used when adding an ADDITIONAL data drive to an already parity protected array. 

Wow that sucks!

 

Was I right about the HDparam command?

Wow that sucks!

 

Was I right about the HDparam command?

Why?  If you already pre-cleared the entire 3TB drive, and if it looks good to to you, AND

if you are simply replacing existing drives, then the pre-clear signature is not involved at all.  No need to clear again at all (unless you are adding an ADDITIONAL data disk to a slot in the array not currently populated)

 

If all you are doing is up-sizing existing drives, the pre-clear has no effect on the time it will take to re-construct onto the new drive.  Drives that are replacing existing data drives are written to in their entirety by unRAID in the reconstruction process.

 

If you are running the pre-clear process to exercise the disk and check for bad sectors you need to do it BEFORE the HPA is added to artificially make the disk look smaller.  Otherwise, the top third of the disk will not be precleared/tested.

Out of curiosity why go through the hassle of trying to use the 3TB drives as 2TB drives?  You are making a lot more work for yourself down the road when you switch to unraid 5.0.  You are going to have to completely redo those drives again.  Why not just switch to 5.0 now?  Yes you will have to redo your parity drive with one of the 3TB drives, but that is all you will have to redo.  Then you can add the other new drives to the array in their full capacity, and not have more work to do later on.

Yes I know I will have a lot of work and be shuffling things around.  I don't want to mess with parity so I am going to make them 2 TB to be used later.  What I will do is use these drives in my backup machine that I am replacing second.  In other words when unraid 5.0 is out and proven I will buy a host of new drives for my original server and start the upgrade with new drives.

 

Joe: I already pre-cleared the drives as 3 TB.  Now I want to make them work as 2.0 so once I change everything HDPARM I have to preclear correct?

 

Thanks,

 

Neil

 

I ran the following and got the following error:

 

root@Storage2:~# hdparm --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing -N p3907029168 /dev/sdl

 

/dev/sdl:

setting max visible sectors to 3907029168 (permanent)

SET_MAX_ADDRESS failed: Input/output error

max sectors  = 5860533168/5284784(5860533168?), HPA setting seems invalid (bug

gy kernel device driver?)

I ran the following and got the following error:

 

root@Storage2:~# hdparm --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing -N p3907029168 /dev/sdl

 

/dev/sdl:

setting max visible sectors to 3907029168 (permanent)

SET_MAX_ADDRESS failed: Input/output error

max sectors  = 5860533168/5284784(5860533168?), HPA setting seems invalid (bug

gy kernel device driver?)

As it said, the disk controller/driver cannot handle that request.  You'll need to use a different disk controller that does report the size correctly, or, a different utility.

 

Oh yes, to keep buggy software from changing the HPA at will, most disks only allow ONE change in the HPA per power cycle.  They actually have to be powered down and back up gain to use the HPA change command again.

Is that unusual for that to deny the request?  I don't quite understand.  I can reboot this server but now I am wondering if I should just go 5.x now   Decisions Decisions.

 

Im just weary and it is a big leap that I don't know if I am prepared....

 

I thought I could use the 3tb as 2tb in the short term

 

Neil

 

I'll add my strong vote to move to v5, save yourself a lot of work.  Upgrading to v5 is relatively easy, see http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Server_Version_5.0-beta_Release_Notes.

Is that unusual for that to deny the request?  I don't quite understand.  I can reboot this server but now I am wondering if I should just go 5.x now   Decisions Decisions.

 

Im just weary and it is a big leap that I don't know if I am prepared....

 

I thought I could use the 3tb as 2tb in the short term

 

Neil

 

All software is beta, even if it is not labelled as such. I've never heard of anyone losing/corrupting data on any of the 5.0 beta/RCs, there's no reason not to be on 5.0 at this point. The worse case, you will have an issue that can be resolved by using a different beta/RC than the latest. I think this only applies to people with SAS-MV8 cards though.

 

It's no different than a normal unRAID upgrade, you just delete a couple more unRAID files, run new permissions after upgrading, and stop using 'root' to access data. You are only going to have problems upgrading if you skip steps and don't follow the very easy to read instructions linked in the post above this... even then its virtually impossible to lose data.

I upgraded to 5 RC5.  All seemed to go well but I can't access some of my shares via windows SMB.  Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Neil

 

Did you delete these files (in flash/config/):

passwd

shadow

smbpasswd

 

Did you run the New Permissions script?

Did you re-add your users?

Are you trying to use root for access?

Have you restarted the clients?

 

Did you delete these files (in flash/config/):

passwd

shadow

smbpasswd

* I deleted all of these except shadow since I couldn't see it!?

 

Did you run the New Permissions script?

*Yes I ran this but I put my cache drive in afterwards does that matter?

 

Did you re-add your users?

*I only had root before and I share everything publicly so it shouldn't be a problem

 

Are you trying to use root for access?

* I don't know I just map over to that machine in windows and I can see the shares and I click on it.  Never prompted for a user name and password but they are publicly shared as said above.

 

Have you restarted the clients?

*No not yet. But I tried connecting from a different computer which hadn't connected before I don't think and it was still an issue

 

I can drill down in the web interface so I know my stuff is all there (thank goodness)

 

Thanks!

 

Neil