Transition from QNAP to Unraid

[lux]

Hello,

 

I have a QNAP TS-853 pro. How do I make the transition from QNAP to a brand new 4U server, without having to buy all new disks to migrate the data? I have about 12TB of data.

 

Lux

[trurl]

Do you have backups?

[lux]

No. But I can buy a 14tb single drive, whip it in to an enclosure, and backup everything to that simple enough. 
 

is that the thought process? Make multiple backups, and then simply put all 8 drives in to the new unraid? Restore from backup?

 

lux

[weirdcrap]

7 hours ago, lux said:

No. But I can buy a 14tb single drive, whip it in to an enclosure, and backup everything to that simple enough. 
 

is that the thought process? Make multiple backups, and then simply put all 8 drives in to the new unraid? Restore from backup?

 

lux

Yes you would need a single good backup of all 12TBs of your QNAP data as UnRAID will need to wipe and format all of your existing data disks.

Edited August 2, 2021 by weirdcrap

[lux]

That will make for a very tense transfer!

 

Thank you for your response.

 

In your experience, creating an unraid with 8 x 8TB disks, how long will it take to format the disks ready for unraid?

[Frank1940]

If you set the array up with a Parity drive, it will take about 19Hours to format the data disks and build parity.

 

If you  don't use a Parity drive in the initial array setup (which allows for faster transfer of the data to the Unraid array as you will have a backup-- those QNAP disks), it will take about three minutes to format the disks.   When you add the Parity Disk, it will take about 19 Hours to build parity.  

 

See here for how Unraid Parity works:

 

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

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Frank1940

[lux]

@Frank1940

 

Thank you for your reply and for the link. 
 

If I may, it’s not quite clear in the documentation whether you can add a parrot drive after you’ve setup a few JBOD’s…?

 

Use case here would be I would only need to buy 2 new drives initially. Transfer the 12TB of data on to them from my QNAP, and then power down the QNAP and one by one transition the drives from inside the qnap to the unraid. 
 

 

[itimpi]

7 minutes ago, lux said:

If I may, it’s not quite clear in the documentation whether you can add a parrot drive after you’ve setup a few JBOD’s…?

 

Assuming you mean a parity  drive then you can add (or remove) parity drives at any time.

[Frank1940]

The Data drives (used in the data array) are actually formatted using a Standard Linux disk format.  Each file that you write to the array is written on one (and only one) of the data disks using that file format-- ex., xfs.  Thus, the Data Disks can be read by any computer running standard Linux.  Unlike a typical RAID system, the Parity Disk in Unraid (note the  meaning of the name!) is not a part of the actual data storage scheme.

 

A big advantage of Unraid is that if you were to have more disk failures than parity will will allow you to reconstruct, you only lose the data on the failed data disks!  (With the typical RAID system, you would lose everything!)

Edited August 3, 2021 by Frank1940

[lux]

6 hours ago, itimpi said:

 

Assuming you mean a parity  drive then you can add (or remove) parity drives at any time.

 Ha ha ha! Damn auto correct! Though I think parrot drives has a nice ring to it. Thanks for the response @itimpi!

[lux]

@Frank1940 Thank you for your response. Just reading up on the forum that the sensible limit for the number of parity drives is 2, in other words you don’t increase the number of parity drives for x number of additional disks. Whether you have 24 bay or 8 bay, you’d still only have 2 parity disks (or one, if you were brave enough!).

 

Thank you for your help everyone.

Lux

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, lux said:

@Frank1940 Thank you for your response. Just reading up on the forum that the sensible limit for the number of parity drives is 2, in other words you don’t increase the number of parity drives for x number of additional disks. Whether you have 24 bay or 8 bay, you’d still only have 2 parity disks (or one, if you were brave enough!).

 

Thank you for your help everyone.

Lux

At the moment you cannot have more than 2 parity drives (although I wonder if that will increase in the future?).   At least with UnRaid each drive is a self-contained file system so even if you have more drives fail than you have parity drives all other drives will still be readable.

[lux]

Th

1 minute ago, itimpi said:

At the moment you cannot have more than 2 parity drives (although I wonder if that will increase in the future?).   At least with UnRaid each drive is a self-contained file system so even if you have more drives fail than you have parity drives all other drives will still be readable.

That’s useful, saves the whole array from failing. Thank you @itimpi 

[Frank1940]

Actually, most of the folks who are using two parity drives are doing it because of Mr Murphy and his laws of probability of events...

 

Anyone, who is truly concerned about his data, sets up regular parity checks, sets up the notification process to be notified as soon as Unraid detects the first sign of a problem.  He addresses any issue as soon as he becomes aware of it.  In fact, single parity will handle 99.99% of these problems.  Dual parity is for the Mr. Murphy's law which states that you think you have a minor issue and it will compound itself into a major one!  They are using dual parity in case a second drive (previously problem free) has issues during data recovery. 

 

If you truly require dual parity you need to being thinking about other ways that you can lose your data--  lightning, fire, flood, theft of the server to mention a few.  They are far more likely to occur than two simultaneous failures on a well maintained server! Furthermore, no number of parity drives will a substitute for a second offsite backup of data that can not be replaced!!!