Question on how to reformat my drives in my array to BTRFS with out loosing data


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I got a issue I want to reformat my drives in my array to BTRFS so I can try to gets some scripts and maybe setup snapshots. Cause that is one of the major features I miss from FreeNAS or now TureNAS. I really liked having the shadow copies option in my windows shares. Currently I have 6 Disks in my array and 2 parity.  2 of the drives are already formatted for BTRFS. But I want to know how I do this.

Do I remove 1 drive from the array at a time. and then let parity rebuild the array?  Then after a 2 or 3 days then add a drive back in 1 at a time?

I don't have enough drives I could setup a temp server to backup all the data and rebuild. my backup server I just loaded up OMV and setup a ZFS strip array which gives me enough storage for backup.

But that's backup I do Strip array cause its backup I don't value the backup server as much as I do my primary. I don't want to buy a unraid license for it cause its all backup hardware and the hardware is outdated and doesn't even support doing VM's unless on windows 2012r2 with HyperV or earlier versions of ESXI.

I mean I guess I could just backup all the data and try to start from scratch and do a rsync. But at the same time I feel that would take almost as long as replacing 1 drive at a time.

I mean I'm really just trying to get snap shots as a option in my array. So I'm open to other ideas on how to get this.

I just like unraid cause I like how I can add any size drive and the docker setup up is so easy and amazing to setup. And the VM's options I've seen videos for and the pass thru looks amazing. I really think I picked the right platform. I'm just missing 1 feature that i really did like.

 

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well if parity doesnt help with data restore then I don't understand its purpose.  I mean if I loose a drive I still have to restore my data manually then?

If thats the case I wasted my money buying this and I will swear off this product going forward. I really don't understand what purpose this product does in that case.

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1 minute ago, Bizquick said:

well if parity doesnt help with data restore then I don't understand its purpose.  I mean if I loose a drive I still have to restore my data manually then?

If thats the case I wasted my money buying this and I will swear off this product going forward. I really don't understand what purpose this product does in that case.

No - if you loose a drive then unRaid can rebuild onto a replacement drive exactly the same file system by working at the sector level.   It works at the sector level, not the file level.  What you cannot do via this process is change the file system on the drive.

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Please start by reading this section of the manual:

 

         https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Overview#Parity-Protected_Array

 

To be more precise,  a 'Parity Rebuild' does not restore 'Data'.  It reconstructs the contents of the entire drive which includes the formatting and all of the data.

 

IF you format any drive in any OS (that I am aware of), you will lose any data on the drive.   Furthermore, if that drive is in an Unraid array (as data drives are), the formatting is operation modifies the Parity drive so that parity will now reflect that the drive has been newly formatted.    (There are warnings in Unraid that Formatting is NEVER a part of data recovery!)

 

If you want to change the formatting on the disks used in the array without losing data, here is a link to the procedure to do so:

 

      https://forums.unraid.net/topic/54769-format-xfs-on-replacement-drive-convert-from-rfs-to-xfs/?tab=comments#comment-535203

 

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Ok this is starting to make sense. So I really at this point I would have to blow away the array and start over and then restore data.

I think I do have a few ideas on how to maybe do with out redoing the entire array and 1 disk at a time. But I'm still not sure that's what I want to do yet.

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