8TB WD Red Recovery Plan — 2026-03-12¶

Status: Pending (requires home access)¶

Background¶

On 2026-02-22, the 8TB WD Red Plus (WDC WD80EFBX-68AZZN0) suffered GPT partition table corruption caused by the Sabrent EC-DFLT USB enclosure's JMicron controller silently translating sector sizes (512e → 4096). Data was recovered via losetup --sector-size 4096 and copied to the Purple drive. The 8TB drive remains in the NAS with no partition table and no mount.

Current Drive Inventory¶

Device	Model	Size	Mount	Status

| sda | Lexar NQ100 SSD | 240GB | / (LVM) | Healthy — OS + Docker | | sdb | WD Purple (WD23PURZ) | 2TB | /mnt/purple | 98% full (1.7TB/1.8TB) | | sdc | WD Red Plus (WD80EFBX) | 8TB | unmounted | No partition table — needs recovery | | sdd | 512GB SSD | 476GB | unmounted | ext4 partition exists, not in fstab | | sde | Generic Flash Disk | 3.7GB | /boot/efi, /boot | Boot USB (permanent) |

Free SATA ports: 2 (ASUS P8H77-I has 4 SATA total, 2 occupied by sda + sdb)

Wait — sdc, sdd are also connected. The board may have more ports or sdd is via a different interface. Verify physical SATA topology when home.

Available Spare Drives (at home)¶

Drive	Size	Location	Interface

Recovered Data on Purple (`/mnt/purple/red-recovery/`)¶

Directory	Size	Criticality	Replaceable?

Critical irreplaceable data: 213GB (videos + photos)¶

Purple Drive Space Crisis¶

/dev/sdb1  1.8T  1.7T  45GB  98%  /mnt/purple

Breakdown:

red-recovery: ~1.5TB
frigate recordings: ~158GB
restic backups: ~8KB (just initialized)
Free: 45GB

Purple is nearly full. Frigate will stop recording when it runs out of space. This is the immediate problem.

Recovery Plan (8TB Physically Healthy Scenario)¶

Prerequisites¶

Physical access to NAS (sudo password required)
All critical services stopped or paused during disk operations
Terminal session via SSH (not browser-based to avoid timeouts)

Phase 1: Verify 8TB Drive Health¶

# Run SMART health check
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdc

# Check for reallocated sectors, pending sectors, uncorrectable errors
sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdc | grep -E 'Reallocated|Current_Pending|Offline_Uncorrectable'

# If SMART looks clean, run extended self-test (~14 hours for 8TB)
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdc

# Check result after test completes
sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdc

Decision point¶

Reallocated_Sector_Ct > 0 OR Current_Pending_Sector > 0 → drive is degrading, go to "Failing Drive" plan
All zeros + extended test passes → drive is healthy, continue to Phase 2

Phase 2: Repartition 8TB Drive¶

# Verify there's no remaining data we missed
# Try the old losetup trick to check if more data exists
sudo losetup --sector-size 4096 -f --show /dev/sdc
# Mount read-only and compare with red-recovery
sudo mount -o ro /dev/loop0 /mnt/temp
# diff or ls to verify nothing was missed
sudo umount /mnt/temp
sudo losetup -d /dev/loop0

# Once confirmed all data is safe, create fresh partition table
sudo parted /dev/sdc mklabel gpt
sudo parted /dev/sdc mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%

# Create filesystem (ext4, optimized for large drive)
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L red8 -m 1 -T largefile4 /dev/sdc1
# -m 1: reserve only 1% for root (vs default 5% = 400GB wasted)
# -T largefile4: optimize inode ratio for media storage

# Create mount point and mount
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/red8
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/red8
sudo chown augusto:augusto /mnt/red8

Phase 3: Restore Data to 8TB¶

# Create directory structure
mkdir -p /mnt/red8/{media,downloads,data,sync,backup}

# Copy critical data FIRST (most important)
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/raidmain/videos/ /mnt/red8/data/family-videos/
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/raidmain/photos/ /mnt/red8/data/family-photos/

# Verify critical data integrity
diff -rq /mnt/purple/red-recovery/raidmain/videos/ /mnt/red8/data/family-videos/
diff -rq /mnt/purple/red-recovery/raidmain/photos/ /mnt/red8/data/family-photos/

# Copy remaining data
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/home/ /mnt/red8/data/home-backup/
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/music/ /mnt/red8/media/music/
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/videos/ /mnt/red8/media/videos/
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/purple/red-recovery/scanner/ /mnt/red8/data/scanner/

Phase 4: Add to fstab¶

# Get UUID
sudo blkid /dev/sdc1

# Add to /etc/fstab
echo 'UUID=<uuid-from-above>  /mnt/red8  ext4  defaults,noatime  0  2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

# Test mount
sudo umount /mnt/red8
sudo mount -a
df -h /mnt/red8

Phase 5: Recreate Symlinks¶

# Restore /srv/ symlinks (adjust paths to match new layout)
sudo ln -sfn /mnt/red8/media /srv/media
sudo ln -sfn /mnt/red8/downloads /srv/downloads
sudo ln -sfn /mnt/red8/data /srv/data
sudo ln -sfn /mnt/red8/sync /srv/sync
sudo ln -sfn /mnt/red8/backup /srv/backup

Phase 6: Free Purple Drive¶

# ONLY after verifying all data is safely on the 8TB
# Double-check critical data exists on red8
ls -la /mnt/red8/data/family-videos/
ls -la /mnt/red8/data/family-photos/

# Remove recovery data from Purple
sudo rm -rf /mnt/purple/red-recovery/

# Verify Purple has space again
df -h /mnt/purple
# Should show ~1.5TB free (back to ~15% usage)

Phase 7: Backup Critical Data (213GB)¶

The 512GB SSD (sdd) already in the NAS is perfect for this.

# Mount the 512GB SSD
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/backup-ssd
sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt/backup-ssd

# Copy critical irreplaceable data
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/red8/data/family-videos/ /mnt/backup-ssd/family-videos/
rsync -avh --progress /mnt/red8/data/family-photos/ /mnt/backup-ssd/family-photos/

# Verify
diff -rq /mnt/red8/data/family-videos/ /mnt/backup-ssd/family-videos/
diff -rq /mnt/red8/data/family-photos/ /mnt/backup-ssd/family-photos/

# Add to fstab
echo 'UUID=<uuid>  /mnt/backup-ssd  ext4  defaults,noatime  0  2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

This gives you 2 copies of critical data (8TB + 512GB SSD) plus offsite via rclone to Google Drive.

Phase 8: Restart Services¶

# Restart Docker containers that depend on /mnt/red8 or /srv/ paths
cd /opt/homelab/repo/docker/fixed/nas/storage && docker compose up -d
cd /opt/homelab/repo/docker/fixed/nas/backup && docker compose up -d

# Verify NFS exports if Docker VM mounts from NAS
sudo exportfs -ra

# On Docker VM: verify NFS mounts
ssh docker-vm "df -h /mnt/nas/*"

Alternative: Failing Drive Plan¶

If SMART shows bad sectors or extended test fails:

Do NOT write to the 8TB — any writes risk further damage
Check if more data needs recovery via losetup (read-only)
Install 3TB drives in free SATA ports
Distribute data:
512GB SSD (sdd): family videos (45GB) + photos (168GB) = 213GB
3TB drive #1: home backups (473GB) + music (346GB) = 819GB
3TB drive #2: videos (145GB) + service data + Restic target
Decommission 8TB or use as non-critical scratch space
Purchase replacement 8TB WD Red Plus when budget allows

Post-Recovery Checklist¶

[ ] SMART extended test passes on 8TB
[ ] Fresh GPT + ext4 on 8TB
[ ] All red-recovery data restored and verified (diff -rq)
[ ] Critical data (213GB) duplicated to 512GB SSD
[ ] Critical data synced to Google Drive via rclone
[ ] Purple drive freed (should be ~15% used)
[ ] Frigate recording unblocked
[ ] fstab updated for both red8 and backup-ssd
[ ] /srv/ symlinks recreated
[ ] NAS Docker services restarted
[ ] NFS exports verified from Docker VM
[ ] Update MEMORY.md with new drive layout

Estimated Time¶

Phase 1 (SMART test): ~14 hours (run overnight)
Phase 2 (repartition): ~10 minutes
Phase 3 (restore 1.5TB): ~3-4 hours (SATA-to-SATA)
Phase 4-6 (fstab, symlinks, cleanup): ~15 minutes
Phase 7 (backup 213GB to SSD): ~30 minutes
Phase 8 (restart services): ~15 minutes