[solved] Preclear of multiple drives in RC8 is very slow

I am trying to preclear 5 drives at the same time with RC8 and it is going very slow at less than 1 MB/s once step 2 is reached (writing to remainder of disk).  Step 1 runs at the expected 80 to 100 MB/s.  I swapped to version 4.7 and precleared the same 5 drives at 80 to 100 MB/s on step 2.  Is this a problem others are having?

syslog_11-14-2012.zip

My drives all cleared slow too in 8. Who knows. Thought it was just me.

My drives all cleared slow too in 8. Who knows. Thought it was just me.

One Drive at a time preclear as expected just when I preclear multiple drives it goes very slow.

I precleared 2 drives at the same time (using an esata port multiplier) and speeds dropped at their lowest to the 32 - 35MB/s range.  I'm on 5.0-rc8a.

I precleared 2 drives at the same time (using an esata port multiplier) and speeds dropped at their lowest to the 32 - 35MB/s range.  I'm on 5.0-rc8a.

I am using a SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8.  I think that my controller may not be fully working under the new v5-RC8.  This controller does work under v4.7.  I'm going to place my drives on the MB and see what happens.

I have uploaded a syslog and I think I was remembering incorrectly when I said that one drive will preclear fine one drive will also preclear very slowly at about 400 to 500 KB/s.  But preclearing on version 4.7 works just fine.  I need to use version 5 because I have 3TB drives that I want to use.

syslog_11-14-2012.zip

Hi all,

I think I may be experiencing the same issue. I'm running 5.0-rc8a on an Asus C60M1-I. Currently preclearing 2 3 TB drives (WD30EZRX) at the same time. The console shows ~65MB/s but unMenu shows ~28MB/s. Going on 46h and have not finished the 1st cycle yet. I need v5 for the 3TB drives so I guess I'm stuck.

================================================================== 1.13
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdb
=               cycle 1 of 3, partition start on sector 1
= Disk Pre-Clear-Read completed                                 DONE
= Step 1 of 10 - Copying zeros to first 2048k bytes             DONE
= Step 2 of 10 - Copying zeros to remainder of disk to clear it DONE
= Step 3 of 10 - Disk is now cleared from MBR onward.           DONE
= Step 4 of 10 - Clearing MBR bytes for partition 2,3 & 4       DONE
= Step 5 of 10 - Clearing MBR code area                         DONE
= Step 6 of 10 - Setting MBR signature bytes                    DONE
= Step 7 of 10 - Setting partition 1 to precleared state        DONE
= Step 8 of 10 - Notifying kernel we changed the partitioning   DONE
= Step 9 of 10 - Creating the /dev/disk/by* entries             DONE
= Step 10 of 10 - Verifying if the MBR is cleared.              DONE
= Post-Read in progress: 94% complete. 
(  2,845,946,880,000  of  3,000,592,982,016  bytes read ) 65.9 MB/s
Disk Temperature: 29C, Elapsed Time:  46:08:16

Here is a copy of my syslog running 4.7 working correctly preclearing 1.5TB drives.

syslog_v4.7.zip

Count me as another of those experiencing painfully slow preclear speeds while preclearing multiple drives under RC8 (four 4tb Hitachi drives on one SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8, four more on another SASLP-MV8, and a ninth 4tb WD Black on a SATA III port on a SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O MB). As mentioned previously, step 1 ran at normally expected speeds; step 2, however, is another matter. Although I can see that bytes are being slooowwwwwly written to the drives, I have been stuck at zero % for approx. 18 hours now (example of my 4tb WD Black: Wrote  29,307,699,200  bytes out of  4,000,787,030,016  bytes (0% Done)).

Initially I attempted to preclear 8 of the drives on a sole SASLP-MV8. But the whole thing crashed after a couple of hours. I posted my syslog, but have heard nothing back re whether this result should be expected while attempting such a thing on a single card.

Obviously, there is a problem somewhere. But, I have no idea where it is or how to fix it.

As a X9SCM-F user, you might want to check out this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=22675.0

Thanks. I've had other problems with this new X9SCM-F board. One of the NIC ports doesn't work. SuperMicro tech support has been very responsive but can't seem to resolve the issue. I also had - what I thought - were problems booting up only 2 of the 3 AOC-SASLP-MV8s with it. After multiple hours of tech support assistance, it was finally determined that although only 2 of them appeared to boot up, once I fired up UnRAID, I could see drives on all three. According to tech support: "The BIOS needs a certain amount of option ROM in order to boot up therefore it has to limit the amount of option ROM that can be used by add-on cards. Once you go into the OS, you will be able to see all 3 cards." This proved to be correct.

This is my second UnRAID box that I have built (the first being with an ASUS board without IPMI - which is what I wanted with this build). I got the X9SCM-F and the SASLP-MV8s based on the feedback in this forum. Unfortunately, I either had blinders on or I failed to see problems associated with them. If anybody has any suggestions for a MB with IPMI that will take an Intel Xeon E3-1230 cpu, I'm all ears. Also, if the SASLP-MV8s are problematic, I would also like to find a solution to take the place of the the 3 SASLP-MV8s that I currently have (22 SATA ports to max out UnRAID). I've seen people using an IBM M1015 card with an expander, but I don't have an extra box to reflash it, they are getting more difficult to find, and they seem a bit expensive now compared to others out there.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Once I updated to RC9 I was able to preclear three 3TB drives at once at about 100MB/s.