HELP!- Array is stopped ( fear of losing everything ) SOLVED

[1humshark]

Valium in hand.  Hoping we have an out here.  UnRaid v4.7

 

1) I realized that our server wasn't performing up to par - we've had various power issues, with storms etc. - and the battery backup that services the disk array was in alarm.

2) I pulled up the server and saw that the PARITY disk was offline, but everything else seemed to be working.  I needed to copy some files from the server and it did so without complaint.

3) I have a jpeg showing the configuration that appears when i looked it up.

 

The PARITY, & ( DISK4, DISK5, DISK6 ) all live in a small rack outside of the actual server case and have their own powersupply.  ( the one in alarm )

I shut down the array and went down to check power and data connections.  The external nature of this arrangement has meant that i have done this a couple times over the last few years.

 

NOW HERE IS THE PINCH - PARITY and DISK6 share a power circuit from the powersupply, and earlier when using the array i never touched anything on DISK6.  In fact theres a good chance that DISK6 hasn't been used specifically for anything in a long time.

 

- next - made my heart sink.  I replugged the power and data cables and turned the stack on.  the powersupply started, went into alarm, and smoke came from the back of DISK6.....

 

I unplugged DISK6 and started the server.

Everything comes up - but the array says that the PARITY is a new disk......  and of course with DISK6 out, this thing is not going to start freely for me.

 

Look, I don;t care about whats on DISK6.  I do care about the rest of the array. 

HELP?

 

Attaching a pic of the setup and the syslog

syslog.txt

Edited February 23, 2017 by 1humshark

[trurl]

You will have to initconfig without disk6 and rebuild parity.

 

Wiki: remove drive

 

Please consider upgrading. It is getting very difficult for anyone to support your version since we haven't seen it in years.

[1humshark]

OK -

just to be clear.  I'm attaching a pic of the array currently.

 

To successfully start the array without disk six. 

Should I un-assign the device for disk 6 before performing the initconfig ? 

[1humshark]

Sorry - when the data is at stake - I get all nervous nilly  =)

 

Anyway  - quick question.  is there a way to bring this up on the parity drive like it had never been disconnected?  Is this unwise? 

 

That way the whole array could come up and function until I replaced disk6 tomorrow.  Just a thought.

OR is this past that point, and the only thing to do is init config and go......

[ashman70]

Going forward I would suggest a backup strategy as it sounds like this is the only place you have important data. Perhaps either an external drive or cloud service.

[JorgeB]

Should I un-assign the device for disk 6 before performing the initconfig ?

 

Since the disk is already missing you can't (and there's no need) to unassign it.

 

 

Anyway  - quick question.  is there a way to bring this up on the parity drive like it had never been disconnected?  Is this unwise? 

 

AFAIK not with v4.7, there's a way to trust parity but a parity check would start immediately after array start, you'd need to use a new disk in place of the missing disk so parity would be corrupted.

[garycase]

A couple of thoughts ...

 

=> First, Disk 6 is apparently dead, and without it you don't have a protected array, so you should consider all of the data on disk #6 gone, and all of the data on disks 1-5 "at risk" -- i.e. if any of those disks fail you'll also lose the data on them.

 

=>  If (as I assume is likely) you do NOT have backups of all of your data, that's the FIRST thing I'd do.  You should absolutely upgrade to a newer version of UnRAID, but before doing that you may want to do an Init Config WITHOUT PARITY (just assign data disks 1 thru 5 to the array); and then copy ALL of the data from your array to a backup disk.  The total capacity of disks 1-5 is less than 3TB, so an inexpensive 3TB (or larger) external drive attached to a PC would have plenty of space for you to copy ALL of the data from those disks ... and you'd then have a backup of your data and could alleviate the concern you expressed with the following comment:

 

... when the data is at stake - I get all nervous nilly  =)

 

This would work fine for the backup drive:  https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-Desktop-Storage-STFM3000100/dp/B01H9TA1T4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486719484&sr=8-1&keywords=3TB+backup+drive

 

Although you may want to get a larger drive to allow for future expansion of your backup needs ...

 

4TB:  https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-Desktop-Storage-STFM4000100/dp/B01H9QMMYE/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1486719537&sr=8-7&keywords=4TB+backup+drive

 

5TB:  https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB5000100/dp/B00TKFEEBW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486719537&sr=8-2&keywords=4TB+backup+drive

 

 

[garycase]

AFTER you've got your data backed up;  you should consider upgrading to a newer version of UnRAID.  If your CPU has a PassMark rating of at least 1000 or better I'd go with the latest version.    If it's lower than that, you may want to just move to v5, although you'll have to send a note to Limetech to get the download for that, as it's no longer available on the downloads page.  Note that v6 WILL run on the slower processors, but it can be notably slower than what you're accustomed to because of the higher CPU resource demands relative to previous versions.

 

In either case, to do the upgrade, FIRST save a copy of your UnRAID key file to a safe place (e.g. a folder on your PC).

 

Then reformat the USB flash drive to the version you're upgrading to;  copy the key file to the config folder on the flash drive;  and then boot to the flash drive.    Then I'd assign your data drives (1-5) WITHOUT a parity drive; Start the array, and confirm you can "see" all of your data okay.    You'll need to run the "New Permissions" one time, since you're moving from v4.7.    The Stop the array; assign your parity drive; and then Start the array and wait for the parity sync to complete (a few hours).  You'll then have a protected array.

 

[1humshark]

Sorry for the tardiness of the reply, I have been SOOOO busy, I have not even had a chance to determine what is missing since the restore w/out disk6.

 

I have noticed that my processor is not being fully used by this version of Unraid so updating may even bring some gains..  When I built the box I had used a AMD PhenomII x6 core.  This version of Unraid only seems to use 4 cores.

 

Thanks again for help and suggestions.

[garycase]

5 hours ago, 1humshark said:

When I built the box I had used a AMD PhenomII x6 core

This should easily be enough "horsepower" for v6, so I'd definitely upgrade to v6.   Since you do NOT have a valid parity disk, you can't recover data from any of your disks anyway, so I'd simply go straight to a v6 configuration.   As I noted earlier, be sure you save your key file (Plus.key or Pro.key) in a safe place (folder on your PC, etc.) ... and then reformat your flash drive with the latest v6 version download.    Then just copy the key file to the Config folder; and you're ready to boot to that USB flash drive again -- this time it'll be running v6.

 

Then just do what I suggested earlier:

On ‎2‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 3:51 AM, garycase said:

Then I'd assign your data drives (1-5) WITHOUT a parity drive; Start the array, and confirm you can "see" all of your data okay.    You'll need to run the "New Permissions" one time, since you're moving from v4.7. 

 

You should then be able to "see" all of your data with no problem.   Then just Stop the array; assign your parity drive; and then Start the array again to let it do the parity sync.   This will take a few hours -- when it's done, run a parity check to confirm all went well (another few hours) ... and then you'll be up and running on the latest version

[garycase]

... Once you're up-and-running with v6 there are two things you can do to significantly reduce the likelihood of any data loss going forward ..

 

(1)  Definitely implement a back-up process.   With no more data than you have, you could (as I noted earlier) simply use a single large external drive (I'd recommend at least a 4TB drive, and preferably larger)

 

(2)  Add a 2nd parity drive -- this will provide an additional level of fault tolerance for your UnRAID server and make it much less likely that you'll ever lose data due to a disk failure.