Hardware RAID to Unraid - Unassigned devices

[grbatrain]

Hey Guys. Following Situation:

 

I want to switch from a Windows 10 machine to an Unraid build and use a VM as an daily office machine.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KpDq9N

 

Ive currently got a Hardware RAID 5 Setup (5*4TB HDD) + 1*6TB HDD + 1*2TB HDD +  2*240GB SSDs in RAID 1 (for the OS) and i cant really store my data elsewhere. The 6TB HDD is configured as RAID 0 within the RAID Controller. (LSI Mega RAID) and is pretty much empty.

 

what would be my best bet to get the maximum data to the new system? I have to format the drives if i want to use them in an array right?

 

- Could i plug n play the RAID Controller to the new build, insert all HDDs and get access to the data on the drives via unassigned devices? if so: then what? Since i would have to use the 6TB (biggest drive) as parity i guess? 

 

Thanks for your help guys. Really looking forward to using Unraid. 

 

 

 

[grbatrain]

Anyone? Would be awesome

[Energen]

 

On 1/29/2021 at 8:54 AM, grbatrain said:

I have to format the drives if i want to use them in an array right?

Yes.

 

On 1/29/2021 at 8:54 AM, grbatrain said:

- Could i plug n play the RAID Controller to the new build, insert all HDDs and get access to the data on the drives via unassigned devices?

Not sure on that one, someone else will have to confirm.  But at the very least I would imagine it would depend heavily on whether or not Unraid has compatible drivers for the RAID card to use it in the first place, and aside from that I don't know if Unassigned Devices would see it as a RAID configuration or as individual disks.

 

 

Without available drives you're in a pretty tough situation..  you basically need to be able to move all the data off the 5*4TB RAID drives before you destroy the raid configuration.

 

Even if you initially used the 6TB drive as a data drive on Unraid, that's not enough space to move all your data -- and you can't remove a drive from the RAID configuration to use.

 

Unless someone has another idea your only move is really to buy a couple more drives first to move your data off of the RAID drives.  

 

How much data is on the 5*4TB drives?  Assuming they're not totally full you might be able to get away with just 2 new 4TB drives, or an 8, or whatever you wanted.  2*4TB or 1*8TB + existing 6TB drive -- move all data off and then destroy the RAID configuration to get single drives again, and then move the data off the largest (6 or 8TB) drive to the empty drives so you can use that largest drive as parity in Unraid and then start adding empty disks as they become available.

 

It's a messy process for sure.

 

Another note I see that you don't have a GPU selected -- you may want one for your Windows VM to passthrough unless you plan on only using VNC (not very efficient for an office setting).

 

 

[grbatrain]

15 hours ago, Energen said:

 

Yes.

 

Not sure on that one, someone else will have to confirm.  But at the very least I would imagine it would depend heavily on whether or not Unraid has compatible drivers for the RAID card to use it in the first place, and aside from that I don't know if Unassigned Devices would see it as a RAID configuration or as individual disks.

 

 

Without available drives you're in a pretty tough situation..  you basically need to be able to move all the data off the 5*4TB RAID drives before you destroy the raid configuration.

 

Even if you initially used the 6TB drive as a data drive on Unraid, that's not enough space to move all your data -- and you can't remove a drive from the RAID configuration to use.

 

Unless someone has another idea your only move is really to buy a couple more drives first to move your data off of the RAID drives.  

 

How much data is on the 5*4TB drives?  Assuming they're not totally full you might be able to get away with just 2 new 4TB drives, or an 8, or whatever you wanted.  2*4TB or 1*8TB + existing 6TB drive -- move all data off and then destroy the RAID configuration to get single drives again, and then move the data off the largest (6 or 8TB) drive to the empty drives so you can use that largest drive as parity in Unraid and then start adding empty disks as they become available.

 

It's a messy process for sure.

 

Another note I see that you don't have a GPU selected -- you may want one for your Windows VM to passthrough unless you plan on only using VNC (not very efficient for an office setting).

 

 

Thank you for your awesome reply. I installed a Unraid trial and the RAID Disks show as 1 HDD.

 

How should i go about installing/moving the data? "Destroy" my Hardware RAID 5, Install all the HDDs/SSDs except the 6TB one, assign the drives and 1 SSD as Cache and leave the other one for the VM? (without parity?), Format Disk/create the array, move the data from the 6TB via unassigned devices and Krusader etc till its empty, add it to unraid as parity?

 

about the GPU:

Couldnt i passthrough the IGPU to the VM? Was under the impression that it should be possible with a few tweaks. But its not that important atm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Energen]

11 hours ago, grbatrain said:

How should i go about installing/moving the data? "Destroy" my Hardware RAID 5, Install all the HDDs/SSDs except the 6TB one, assign the drives and 1 SSD as Cache and leave the other one for the VM? (without parity?), Format Disk/create the array, move the data from the 6TB via unassigned devices and Krusader etc till its empty, add it to unraid as parity?

Do not do anything to the RAID drives until the data is off of every disk.  As far as I know you cannot 1) read the data off of any single disk of the RAID 5 array without the entire array being operable, and 2) remove any disks from the RAID 5 array.

 

This is the problem -- you can't do anything with those RAID5 disks until any data that you want is transferred over from them.   If you destroy the RAID array you destroy your data.

 

So even if you use the 6TB as a temporary data drive you have up to 20TB of data to move (5*4TB), which does not work mathematically! 

[grbatrain]

10 hours ago, Energen said:

Do not do anything to the RAID drives until the data is off of every disk.  As far as I know you cannot 1) read the data off of any single disk of the RAID 5 array without the entire array being operable, and 2) remove any disks from the RAID 5 array.

 

This is the problem -- you can't do anything with those RAID5 disks until any data that you want is transferred over from them.   If you destroy the RAID array you destroy your data.

 

So even if you use the 6TB as a temporary data drive you have up to 20TB of data to move (5*4TB), which does not work mathematically! 

Thanks for your reply and the heads up 👍

 

Im fine with that since there is unfortanantly no other option to transfer my Data. Ive got most of my files i really need copied to the 6TB. 

 

Would my steps from above work this way? 

 

 

 

 

[Energen]

10 hours ago, grbatrain said:

Would my steps from above work this way? 

 

Yes I think you've pretty much got it figured out.  If you have the data you want from the 5*4TB drives then you can start adding/formatting those drives for Unraid.  

 

When using Krusader/double commander just make sure that you are moving data from the 6TB drive on the disk share level and not the user share level.  i.e. move data to disk2 and disk3 and not a user share like /Media

[grbatrain]

3 hours ago, Energen said:

 

Yes I think you've pretty much got it figured out.  If you have the data you want from the 5*4TB drives then you can start adding/formatting those drives for Unraid.  

 

When using Krusader/double commander just make sure that you are moving data from the 6TB drive on the disk share level and not the user share level.  i.e. move data to disk2 and disk3 and not a user share like /Media

Thanks for your reply and the tip.

 

There are a files (movies and pictures) i want to use with Plex. Can i just throw the data on disk1 i.e and it writes data to disk 2 etc when using high water and point Plex to the disk? Or do i just create folders i.e movies TV Pictures etc and fill them up?

 

Or do i have to move the files again after all HDDs are being added?

 

Sorry for all those questions but i just want to get sure that everything should work when migrating.

 

Thanks for all the help!!

 

 

[Energen]

It doesn't matter which physical disk you move the data to, my point was only that you have to initially move it from disk share to disk share and not disk share to user share.  There are many topics on this as well as some talk about it in the Wiki I believe.  Never move files between disk shares and user shares, only disk share to disk share or user share to user share.

 

When you get your drives installed set up all the shares you want and then move the data from the 6TB drive to whatever disks you want in the same folder hierarchy... maybe it would be easier to initially set a Movie share to only disk1 and a Pictures share to only disk2 so it's easier to see where to move data.

 

 

When it comes to Plex you'll point it at the share for media/pictures.. doesn't matter which disk the data is actually on.

 

 

[grbatrain]

17 hours ago, Energen said:

It doesn't matter which physical disk you move the data to, my point was only that you have to initially move it from disk share to disk share and not disk share to user share.  There are many topics on this as well as some talk about it in the Wiki I believe.  Never move files between disk shares and user shares, only disk share to disk share or user share to user share.

 

When you get your drives installed set up all the shares you want and then move the data from the 6TB drive to whatever disks you want in the same folder hierarchy... maybe it would be easier to initially set a Movie share to only disk1 and a Pictures share to only disk2 so it's easier to see where to move data.

 

 

When it comes to Plex you'll point it at the share for media/pictures.. doesn't matter which disk the data is actually on.

 

 

Thank you so much.

 

I'll try my luck in the next few days and see how it goes👍😂

 

You guys really helped me out.