I am about to build my first DIY NAS with unRaid. Currently I have a Synogoly DS9018+ with 4 x 6TB drives, another 2-bay Synology (3TB + 4TB drive) and an external 2TB drive. I have also bought 2x 4TB drives to put in the DIY box. My plan is to transfer data out of the DS918 to the other drives.

 

The motherboard has only 4x SATA connectors, a SATA expansion card is on its way, but will take probably a month to arrive.

Question is - can I build the NAS with the 2 new drives, transfer data from DS918, take them out for the moment, and build array with the 4x 6TB drives? The 'Unassigned Devices' plug-in seems like the way to go?

 

Would it be possible to then add them (the 2x 4TB drives) to the existing array keeping the data on them, or would the need to be re-formatted?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited June 7, 20215 yr by Reinis
solved

Do you have good backups?

58 minutes ago, trurl said:

Do you have good backups?

No, not yet. I plan to back up the most important information to the external HDD and my laptop.

 

Afterwards, the 2-bay Synology will be used as an automatic daily backup, and the external HDD for manual monthly backups.

6 hours ago, Reinis said:

Would it be possible to then add them (the 2x 4TB drives) to the existing array keeping the data on them, or would the need to be re-formatte

Disks used in the UnRaid array have to be partitioned and formatted by Unraid.

You would need to have backups in place BEFORE reusing any of your existing disks in Unraid.

 

Probably simpler to just wait on your additional ports before trying to get your data on Unraid. It would be possible to copy some data to some disks in Unraid, then start over with a new array and copy some data to other disks in Unraid, and then later combine them all into one array and rebuild parity when you get the additional ports, but I don't see the point. And how would you handle backups in the meantime? 

Yes, my plan is to transfer/backup the data to the older Synology, and backup the most important data to an external HDD.

 

Though about it and you are right, better to wait for the expansion card. So I ordered a used 2-port card while I wait for the 5-port card to arrive.

 

Thanks for your tips, I'm sure I'll have more questions.

For future discussion on how to best move your data, the type of disk arrangement on each current system (RAIDx, JBOD, SHR, etc) and the amount of data on it might help provide the best advice.

More food for thought during your build:

 

You can view your data on the Unassigned.Devices Plugin, but anything you put in the array will be erased and prepped for unraids use. 

 

Expansion Card.

4 Sata Connections + whatever your adding via your expansion card. Make sure its running in IT Mode not Raid mode. 

 

Sata Drives already allocated:

- 1 Parity

- 1 SSD if you plan on running Dockers. You don't have to run SSD if you simply don't care that a drive will be spun up all the time, but Plex and other Dockers run so much better        on an SSD or NVME if you have one. 

- The rest of your data drives. 

 

Also if you do Run SSD plug that into the Motherboard directly because most of the time Expansion cards do not support Trim and your SSD's performance will degrade. I know there are some exceptions and different Bios updates for cards, but I don't recall all that info at this current time. 

Thanks for answering my initial question - that I can not simply merge 'unassigned drives' into the main data array, they need to be reformatted first.

 

It seems like the newest cryptominig craze is driving SATA expansion card prices through the roof. Seller cancelled my order, so now a used server-grade card looks a better investment. Dell PERC H310 seem like a reasonably priced option that should play well with unRaid.

5 hours ago, Reinis said:

Thanks for answering my initial question - that I can not simply merge 'unassigned drives' into the main data array, they need to be reformatted first.

Not that it applies in your case, but if the Unassigned Device is formatted by the Unassigned Devices Plus plugin using filesystem allowed by Unraid array disks (xfs/btrfs), then it would be possible to New Config that disk with its contents into the array and rebuild parity.