Preclear plugin


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I've been through this several times and I'm having major issues with preclearing a new disk.

 

I'm running unRAID Pro, all disks are WD Red 4Tb

2 Parity disks

11 Data Disks

1 preclear-pending disk.

 

I've also got 2x Sandisk 480GB SSD disks as cache devices.

 

I'm running this one a Supermicro 846, Dual Xeon E5645, 192Gb RAM.

Motherboard - X8DTL

HBA - LSA SAS2008

 

Previously, never had any issues preclearing drives. But this time, every time I try to pre-clear I get the correct disk info up, but when I click start, I get a popup window, which immediately closes. NOTHING is written to the log, and the app sticks on "Starting ..." with the red X - I've left it overnight, nothing. Still the same. The device is recognised within unRAID correctly. Just without a log, I'm not sure what the issue is. Rebooted several times, hard and soft reboots.

The only thing that is ANY different is that the current disks are all "WDC WD40EFRX-68W" - the new disk is "WDC WD40EFRX-68N" all on revision 0A82 firmware.

 

With "Unassigned Devices" I'm able to successfully format and mount the disk, I just cannot preclear this one. I've uninstalled and reinstalled three times, rebooted the server, etc. Nothing. I have unmounted the disk prior to pre-clear.

 

If I had a log file, I'd attach it!

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1 hour ago, Johnny G said:

I've been through this several times and I'm having major issues with preclearing a new disk.

 

I'm running unRAID Pro, all disks are WD Red 4Tb

2 Parity disks

11 Data Disks

1 preclear-pending disk.

 

I've also got 2x Sandisk 480GB SSD disks as cache devices.

 

I'm running this one a Supermicro 846, Dual Xeon E5645, 192Gb RAM.

Motherboard - X8DTL

HBA - LSA SAS2008

 

Previously, never had any issues preclearing drives. But this time, every time I try to pre-clear I get the correct disk info up, but when I click start, I get a popup window, which immediately closes. NOTHING is written to the log, and the app sticks on "Starting ..." with the red X - I've left it overnight, nothing. Still the same. The device is recognised within unRAID correctly. Just without a log, I'm not sure what the issue is. Rebooted several times, hard and soft reboots.

The only thing that is ANY different is that the current disks are all "WDC WD40EFRX-68W" - the new disk is "WDC WD40EFRX-68N" all on revision 0A82 firmware.

 

With "Unassigned Devices" I'm able to successfully format and mount the disk, I just cannot preclear this one. I've uninstalled and reinstalled three times, rebooted the server, etc. Nothing. I have unmounted the disk prior to pre-clear.

 

If I had a log file, I'd attach it!

 

See the original post for instructions about getting the logs.

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1 hour ago, Just Me said:

Sorry, if this has been asked before, but is it also possible to preclear an external drive attached via USB or is preclear only able to use disks attached via SATA? 

I have precleared USB attached drives without issue. Some feature may not work. I think most controllers won't support SMART for example. At least none of mine do. If I can choose between USB and eSATA I choose eSATA though, just because all the bells and whistles will work (at least in my case) and I get roughly the same speed between eSATA and USB 3.

  • Like 1
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Thank you very much. I'll give it a try as soon as my external drive arrives. Preclear is always a good way to "burn in" new drives, even if I don't plan to use it with unRAID.

 

SATA or eSATA would be better but the device only has USB 3.0 and I don't want to open the external case, nowadays this always results in a destroyed case because of all these plastic clips :-/

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52 minutes ago, Just Me said:

Thank you very much. I'll give it a try as soon as my external drive arrives. Preclear is always a good way to "burn in" new drives, even if I don't plan to use it with unRAID.

 

SATA or eSATA would be better but the device only has USB 3.0 and I don't want to open the external case, nowadays this always results in a destroyed case because of all these plastic clips :-/

Another option is to run a cable direct to your Motherboard if you have any unused USB ports on it. It's the only way I've been able to get smart support on my server. Pita to plug in the cable though. ?

  • Like 1
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On 9/28/2017 at 6:31 AM, Johnny G said:

I've been through this several times and I'm having major issues with preclearing a new disk.

 

I'm running unRAID Pro, all disks are WD Red 4Tb

2 Parity disks

11 Data Disks

1 preclear-pending disk.

 

I've also got 2x Sandisk 480GB SSD disks as cache devices.

 

I'm running this one a Supermicro 846, Dual Xeon E5645, 192Gb RAM.

Motherboard - X8DTL

HBA - LSA SAS2008

 

Previously, never had any issues preclearing drives. But this time, every time I try to pre-clear I get the correct disk info up, but when I click start, I get a popup window, which immediately closes. NOTHING is written to the log, and the app sticks on "Starting ..." with the red X - I've left it overnight, nothing. Still the same. The device is recognised within unRAID correctly. Just without a log, I'm not sure what the issue is. Rebooted several times, hard and soft reboots.

The only thing that is ANY different is that the current disks are all "WDC WD40EFRX-68W" - the new disk is "WDC WD40EFRX-68N" all on revision 0A82 firmware.

 

With "Unassigned Devices" I'm able to successfully format and mount the disk, I just cannot preclear this one. I've uninstalled and reinstalled three times, rebooted the server, etc. Nothing. I have unmounted the disk prior to pre-clear.

 

If I had a log file, I'd attach it!

 

I'm having the exact same issue as Johnny G talks about here. Except my log files are slightly different - see attached.

I have tried on two (2) WD Red 4TB drives and one (1) WD Black 1TB drive with the same result. A window quickly flashes up and then it sits at "Starting..." indefinitely.

 

Server: Supermicro X8DTL-iF, dual Xenon X5670

 

I was last able to successfully run a preclear on Aug 24 (according to my last preclear_report file) and it finished without error.

preclear_disk_log.txt

diskinfo_status.txt

diskinfo_json.txt

diskinfo_log.txt

 

Update (Oct 18 2017): I found that by reverting to unRAID 6.3.0 that I could successfully run a preclear.

Edited by Joelyyyy
Update
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On 28/09/2017 at 9:09 AM, dnamaster2000 said:

Installed the 2017.09.27 update and everything is working correctly now, thank you for the quick fix!

 

Belated update, had to wait for all drives to finish a preclear on 2017.09.26 before I could update.

 

2017.09.27 is also working well at my end, and I like the added total time & zeroing time details after completion in both preclear and unassigned drives pages. [edit - turns out this was the output of the JoeL script]  I've also found that the high CPU usage and unresponsive Dynamix with multiple simultaneous preclears will now complete the zeroing phase and Dynamix will recover.  Previously I could only manage 4x writes and 2x reads simultaneously on my old 4core hardware, now 8x simultaneous drives zeroing could successfully complete!

 

 

Thanks again for the fast and continued support gfjardim!

Edited by fredhoon
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I dont know if its been discussed before.

But I just started a preclear on a new drive and I get an absolute bucket load of:

 

Oct  8 17:38:46 Odin root: error: /plugins/preclear.disk/Preclear.php: wrong ECB9D825E45EFAC2:3DD224B4739D808C csrf_token
Oct  8 17:38:51 Odin root: error: /plugins/preclear.disk/Preclear.php: wrong ECB9D825E45EFAC2:3DD224B4739D808C csrf_token
Oct  8 17:38:55 Odin root: error: /plugins/preclear.disk/Preclear.php: wrong ECB9D825E45EFAC2:3DD224B4739D808C csrf_token
Oct  8 17:38:56 Odin root: error: /plugins/preclear.disk/Preclear.php: wrong ECB9D825E45EFAC2:3DD224B4739D808C csrf_token

In my logs.. like pages of them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seem to be having an issue with the default script vs the Joe L. script.  I purchased a new Toshiba N300 8TB NAS drive and  started preclear using Preclear plugin version 2017.09.27 with default gfjardim script, clear, no notifications, nothing skipped.  After about 20-30 seconds I had errors spamming syslog.  Stopped preclear ran smart on it and no errors.  Removed drive from my eSATA drive dock and reinstalled and powered it up.  No abnormal noises before or after.  Started preclear again with same settings, same log spam.  Stopped, switched to the Joe L. script (the modified for notifications version) and started with defaults.  Seems to work fine, no errors in log after 20 minutes.  Log excerpt and preclear status attached.

ToshibaN300_JoeL_PreclearLog.txt

 

ToshibaN300_Log-1st.txt

ToshibaN300_Log-2nd.txt

ToshibaN300_JoeL_PreclearLog_26m.txt

Edited by unevent
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On 18/10/2017 at 10:50 PM, unevent said:

Seem to be having an issue with the default script vs the Joe L. script.

 

The SATA link is being reset. That has nothing to do with the script. It's your cable or the eSATA dock that's the problem.

 

EDIT: Are you using a port multiplier on that SATA port too? It shouldn't be a problem but it makes troubleshooting a bit more complicated.

Edited by John_M
Port multiplier?
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59 minutes ago, John_M said:

 

The SATA link is being reset. That has nothing to do with the script. It's your cable or the eSATA dock that's the problem.

 

EDIT: Are you using a port multiplier on that SATA port too? It shouldn't be a problem but it makes troubleshooting a bit more complicated.

 

Agree it is the link being reset, but it occurs after the start of the default script - repeatably, but not with the Joe L script.  Speeds started around 200MB+ then slowed to 10-15MB after 20-30 seconds and the link/drive issues started spamming the log.  I stopped the preclear, powered off the external dock (JMicron JMS561 chipset), removed the hard drive, re-inserted, powered it back up and let it link up and stabilize.  After a couple minutes idle I started the default script again and got another bunch of errors - attached as '...2nd'.  Stopped the preclear then switched to Joe L script and started - no other changes and no touch to hardware.  Worked fine as the attached shows and current status is below.  I agree it looks like standard SATA cable or power issue, but this is an external eSATA dock with its own power supply and the problem persisted after drive removal/attach and cable reattach.  When this preclear is done I plan to try the default script again with no other changes or touching of hardware.  What else concerns me is the start sector of 1 vs 64 which is what the Joe L script should have defaulted to.  Never seen one where it was set to 1 and don't think that was ever an option with the original script - was either 63 or 64.  After this default script test I may install screen and do the original Joe L script like the old days and see what happens.

 

================================================================== 1.15
=                unRAID server Pre-Clear disk /dev/sdq
=               cycle 1 of 1, 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: 4% complete.
(  337,150,976,000  of  8,001,563,222,016  bytes read ) 203 MB/s
Disk Temperature: 36C, Elapsed Time:  29:21:49

 

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3 hours ago, unevent said:

Agree it is the link being reset, but it occurs after the start of the default script - repeatably, but not with the Joe L script.

 

There's no way the script is the reason for the ATA errors, they may be more apparent with one script then the other, but if all was working correctly with your hardware there would be no errors with either.

  • Like 1
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8 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

 

There's no way the script is the reason for the ATA errors, they may be more apparent with one script then the other, but if all was working correctly with your hardware there would be no errors with either.

 

Also agree, it was just strange the errors only occurred with the one script (repeatedly) vs. the other.  Will do more testing when this first clear is finished.

Edited by unevent
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Hi, I've been trying to preclear my new drive but the plugin just seems to sit on starting preclear. I've tried reinstalling it a few times but that hasn't done anything.

 

Here's the downloaded log. From what I could find within it is that it couldn't find the SMART parameters then it found them and nothing else happens. When I try to just show log in the browser, it never loads, just sits with the blank white window. 

TOWER-preclear.disk-20171022-1314.zip

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26 minutes ago, Chandler said:

Hi, I've been trying to preclear my new drive but the plugin just seems to sit on starting preclear. I've tried reinstalling it a few times but that hasn't done anything.

 

Here's the downloaded log. From what I could find within it is that it couldn't find the SMART parameters then it found them and nothing else happens. When I try to just show log in the browser, it never loads, just sits with the blank white window. 

TOWER-preclear.disk-20171022-1314.zip

Same. I just put together a brand new system, all new hard drives. I just sits at "Starting..." and doesn't do anything. System logs don't show anything wrong?

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Just now, puncho said:

Same. I just put together a brand new system, all new hard drives. I just sits at "Starting..." and doesn't do anything. System logs don't show anything wrong?

The only time it has ever worked for me was when I initially installed everything a few months back. Recently when adding a 3TB drive, it didn't work but I decided I wouldn't bother with it and just install it without preclear. But now that I am adding another 8TB drive, I would feel a lot safer preclearing it first :/

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I had tried to do the parity sync, stopped it midway when I realized I should have pre-cleared it first. Would that be causing any issues? I took the array offline and unassigned the devices...I was able to preclear my ssd cache drive (250gb) but stuck at the "Starting..." for the WD hard drives. Thanks.

preclear problem.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am having a problem with preclear- today I purchased 2 new disks and I can't clear either one of them. 
On the Script line it says following: "gfjardim - [strings] Please install it and try again. Line 49" 

The system is Ryzen 5 1600, Gigabyte AB350M gaming 3, 16GB ddr4 ram, WD and Seagate drives.
I've tried to reboot and reinstall several times, nothing has worked. 
OS version is- 6.4.0_rc10b

Edited by Southweave
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