Move data to new array from old disks one by one?

[Dacobi]

I'm about to replace my old disks and I need to copy the data from the old array.

 

Is it possible to access the data from the old disks without them being in an array?

 

I was thinking I'd start up the new array and then attach the old disks one by one and copy the data over.

 

Is this possible or is there a better way?

[JorgeB]

13 hours ago, Dacobi said:

Is it possible to access the data from the old disks without them being in an array?

Yes, you can use the UD plugin.

[Death]

I mounted each old disc as a cache and used mover. 

[trurl]

Is this a new build? Or are you just wanting new disks in your existing server?

 

If you just mean to replace disks in your server with newer or larger disks then replacing and rebuilding them one at a time is the usual method.

[Dacobi]

On 7/29/2021 at 1:05 AM, trurl said:

Is this a new build? Or are you just wanting new disks in your existing server?

 

If you just mean to replace disks in your server with newer or larger disks then replacing and rebuilding them one at a time is the usual method.

I was going to replace all the disks, but I also want to encrypt the array.

Is it possible to encrypt an array that already has data on it?

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, Dacobi said:

Is it possible to encrypt an array that already has data on it?

Not in place!  
 

To encrypt a disk it needs to be formatted as encrypted which wipes any existing content.    You are therefore going to do a lot of copying to get your array to an encrypted state.

 

it is worth checking that you really want encryption and it is worth the hassle?   If you later have problems with the array then encryption can make it more difficult to recover without data loss.

[Dacobi]

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

it is worth checking that you really want encryption and it is worth the hassle?   If you later have problems with the array then encryption can make it more difficult to recover without data loss.

I was only going to use 2 disks, one parity and one data.

 

Can you still rebuild an encrypted array if a disk fails?

[itimpi]

9 minutes ago, Dacobi said:

I was only going to use 2 disks, one parity and one data.

 

Can you still rebuild an encrypted array if a disk fails?

Encryption does not affect whether disks can be rebuilt as that works at the raw sector level so the rebuild process is not even aware of the encryption.

 

Where encryption can get in the way is you get some other sort of failure such as file system level corruption that is invisible to parity.    In this case the utilities for repairing damaged file systems can sometimes struggle if the disks are encrypted.