MsJamie

Thanks for the info. UPDATE: Since version 6.12.4 was released, I went with method 1 above. There was a moment of apprehension as the server booted (it's headless), and a huge sigh of relief when I logged in and saw the Pro registration. I updated to the current version, and it's working well. Again, thanks for the help.

I have the opposite problem from most people changing USB boot drives. I've spent the past month configuring a new server with a trial key, and now I want to move that config over to the old USB drive from my old server that has a Pro key on it. Both are 32TB, and both are set as UEFI. Trial drive: Cheap (throwaway) drive I found in the back of one of my junk drawers. Currently has 6.12.3 running. Pro drive: Name brand drive that's been running my old server flawlessly for the last few years, until the old i5-4500 motherboard gave up the ghost recently. Drive has 6.12.1 installed. From what I can gather, there are two ways to go about this. 1. Delete everything out of /config (on the Pro drive) except the file Pro.key, and copy everything from /config (on Trial) except Trial.key. This should give me a bootable 6.12.1 system with the new config. Update to 6.12.3 and I'm running. 2. Delete ALL files off of the Pro key (except Pro.key, of course), and copy all the files from the Trial key, again, making sure not to copy Trial.key. This should boot into 6.12.3 and be ready to go. Any ideas, thoughts, or comments? Thanks.

For those who stumble across this while searching, this is what I ended up doing, after much trial and error. (Much error.) 1. Disabled parity. 2. Attach the 3 new data drives to the array (format, etc.) 3. Created a new share (imaginatively named "clone") and set it exclusively to the new drives. I didn't need to lock out the new drives for the existing shares, as nothing was being written to the server during this time. 4. Open a root terminal window 5. rsync -av /mnt/user/sharename /mnt/user/clone/sharename 6. Repeat step 5 for each share. 7. Profit! Yes, I'm a CLI nerd. The advantage of using rsync from the command line is that I could interrupt it at any time with a Ctrl-C (I'm in a truck; no spinning drives while the truck is rolling, please), and re-entering the command will pick up where it left off after a few seconds.

I had to change my approach when I discovered that the newly-shucked WD drives were marked unmountable by Unraid when put into the desired enclosures. Since I was going to replace the computer anyway, I pulled everything out of the house. I got the SFF PC that will be used out of storage, put all the drives into MediaSonic Probox enclosures (nice units for a little over $100), and hit the road, still pondering how I was going to do this. While rolling down US-59 with the music going, I realized that I was going about this backwards. (Especially when I realized I left the Unraid flash drive in storage.) Since I was going to spin up a new server anyway, why not start completely clean? So, I effectively did what JorgeB said (before I read his post). I formatted the 3 16TB drives using UD and created the array, and I am now happily copying files to it. When I get to the two newly shucked drives, I suspect that UD will be able to read them directly. If not, I do have the USB to SATA PC boards that were in the enclosure, which I *know* it can read. For expediency in setting up, I am running without parity. After all, I have everything already on the other drives. What kind of speed hit could I expect if I was running with parity? My guess is that it would cut the write speed in half. Just curious.

There's no room for a second computer. I'm a trucker, and the server is at a friend's house.

I want to make a copy of my server to install at a different location; essentially, offsite backup. My current server: 6x 8TB drives; 5 data + 1 parity; approx. 35 TB of data. The new server: 4x 16TB drives; 3 data, 1 parity. For various reasons (space, in particular), the copying has to be done on the current hardware. What I would like to do is add the 3 16TB drives to the existing array (parity discussion below), and create a new share on them (say, /mnt/usr/backup). With a script (or rsync), I'll copy share1 to backup/share1, share2 -> backup/share2, and so on. After the backup is complete, I'll down the array, remove the 16TB drives, and rebuild parity. On the new server, I'll simply move backup/share1 to share1 after creating the share. I know that I can't use 16TB drives on an array with an 8TB parity drive. Since I already have a 16TB drive that will be used for parity in the new server, I can swap that in, rebuild parity, then add the 16TB drives. Or, I can do the copy with no parity drive. (I'm curious which way will leave my files vulnerable for the longer period of time.) Bottom line: I want a copy of all my files on 3 16TB drives, in such a way that I can simply drop them into the new server and be able to directly create an array. If I can do this via Unassigned Devices, that's fine. Any ideas?