So in my haste to try and learn via trial and error, I created a pool called "NAS" thinking I could have it act as a secondary network share and have two separate disk arrays. Didn't work, but that's fine I see now that I can just create multiple shares for different categories. 

 

I just got done transferring ~18 TB of data, and decided to delete the pool I created and add the disks associated to my array. I can't seem to add the disks to my array however, when I try to start the array I am met with an error message. I know that when I first created my array, it had to erase the disks but I can't find an option to do that either. Here are some screen caps for reference

 

Tools - New Config will let you assign disks however you want and then rebuild parity. The disks will be taken as they are with their existing contents, and parity will be rebuilt based on the data disks assigned to the parity array.

The screenshot appears to show adding both a parity disk and another data drive at the same time.   This is not allowed - they have to be done separately.

 

The New Config tool allows you to do this in one step.

34 minutes ago, itimpi said:

The screenshot appears to show adding both a parity disk and another data drive at the same time.   This is not allowed - they have to be done separately.

 

The New Config tool allows you to do this in one step.

I simply haven't done the parity yet, I was waiting to do parity until I added the new disk since my understanding is that will require rebuilding the parity anyway.

 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Tools - New Config will let you assign disks however you want and then rebuild parity. The disks will be taken as they are with their existing contents, and parity will be rebuilt based on the data disks assigned to the parity array.

 

I'll give this a shot, thanks

Thanks I think this has worked. I did notice that when I created a share for my "backups" it caused my drives that host my plex files to completely become unresponsive while transferring data. Is there a best practice way to do this? I'm guessing for my backups I would want to create a pool and assign only one drive and exclude the rest, and then for my plex library exclude the disk I'm using for my backups? But then I'll have to remember to exclude that disk from everything I do going forward, right?

33 minutes ago, Zetswei said:

I did notice that when I created a share for my "backups" it caused my drives that host my plex files to completely become unresponsive while transferring data.

Was it still building parity when you were transferring data? Using the array while building parity is going to slow down file access, and slow down parity build, since parity build accesses all disks, and file access will access those same disks but will have to seek a different sector that parity is working on, etc.

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Was it still building parity when you were transferring data? Using the array while building parity is going to slow down file access, and slow down parity build, since parity build accesses all disks, and file access will access those same disks but will have to seek a different sector that parity is working on, etc.

 

No, I had the parity paused while I was transferring data. It went back to normal after the transfers was done so I'm guessing that's all it was.

 

I think though that I'm going to put my plex media between 2 16 TB drives, and then have my backups across 2 3 TB drives. I'll have to play around and figure out how to do that. I really like unraid so far though.

Each user share has settings that control how it uses storage, such as which disks to include