Remove assigned but unused disk from array?

[dev_guy]

I have some assigned disks that are not yet part of any shares. I note despite never being part of a share they still indicate about 70GB used. Is there a way to remove one of these disks without rebuilding parity for the entire array? I'd like to go from 8 to 7 disks by removing an unused disk that's never been assigned to any shares and use that disk elsewhere without replacing it. Any advice would be great?

[JonathanM]

6 minutes ago, dev_guy said:

Is there a way to remove one of these disks without rebuilding parity for the entire array?

Rebuilding parity is the quickest way. You can write all zeroes to the entire drive so parity is still valid when you remove it, but that takes much longer than simply rebuilding parity.

 

Unraid parity has no concept of files or filesystems, it's calculated across the entire capacity of the drive whether there are any files or not.

 

The used space showing on the drive is the filesystem, which is the metadata set up in preparation for the organization and retrieval of files. All that information is part of the parity calculation, as is all the free space. It's all included in parity.

[dev_guy]

31 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Rebuilding parity is the quickest way. You can write all zeroes to the entire drive so parity is still valid when you remove it, but that takes much longer than simply rebuilding parity.

 

Thanks for the reply and added info. That's what I suspected but I wasn't sure. It's great to get such prompt helpful answers here. Thanks again.