I'm very new to this so please bear with me. I'm starting unRAID with about 6 TB of data that I have ingested into an array with two data drives, a 10 TB and 14 TB. I'm using unBalance to move everything off the 14 TB so I can turn it into a parity drive, is it as simple as stopping the array and changing the drive assignments? I'm a little paranoid that if I set the 14 TB as parity the other drive will also reformat and I'll lose everything. These are the only two large drives I have, so it's taken a while to move the data back and forth between drives and file systems. 

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by shattered
Marked solved

Yes it's basically as simple as that.  When you change the drive assignment and start the array it will most likely start to clear that 14TB drive (which is going to take a long time) and then it will become your parity drive.

 

You may want to follow the steps in the Unraid wiki about changing drives around... I don't know if it matters in this case since you're only using 2 drives but there's a step about using a new configuration.  I don't 100% understand what it's all about (but I do it).  Since you're moving teh 14TB to parity your "second" disk should be moved to the first data slot and that might be where the "new config" comes into play.

 

Someone with a better grasp of moving disk assignments around might chime in but I recently replaced two SSD cache drives with 2 NVME drives and added a data disk and had no issues with anything, so I don't think you have anything to worry about with losing data by changing drive assignments.

It won't clear the drive since there is no parity that it needs to keep valid.

 

I don't think you can remove a data disk without going through New Config, although there is technically no reason you couldn't except for preventing user error. *** In this situation with no parity disk. If you have parity it is definitely required ***

 

So, after you have all the data on the other disk, go to Tools - New Config. It will let you assign any disks however you want. Be sure you don't assign the data disk to the parity slot or it will be overwritten with parity. Then start the array to begin building parity.

 

 

 

Thank you! I was able to use the 'New Config' tool without issue!