Trying to upgrade from dual 3tb parity to dual 14tb but at drive limit

[danimal86]

i'm at my drive limit using a hodge podge of small drives and i want to consolidate my drives to 4 14tb drives i just got.  I added 2 drives and they show up as unassigned drives, but i cant start my array because its at my license drive limit.  I really dont want to pay 50 bucks when i wont go over 12 drives just to be able to preclear them.  

 

I'm running an lsi 9211-8i card along with my motherboard ports (the 14tb drives are on the lsi card).  How do i go about pre-clearing these?  I cant seem to find out if its safe to just plug the drives in after the array has started.  

 

My other option is to just not pre-clear them.  If thats the case, then i would just remove one of the 3tb parity drives and assign one of the 14tb drives and let it rebuild?  Then do the same with the remaining 3tb?

[Squid]

21 minutes ago, danimal86 said:

My other option is to just not pre-clear them.  If thats the case, then i would just remove one of the 3tb parity drives and assign one of the 14tb drives and let it rebuild?  Then do the same with the remaining 3tb?

Yes.  Personally, I never bother with a preclear, as a rebuild onto them followed by a parity check is the same rough thing as a pre-clear.

[danimal86]

12 minutes ago, Squid said:

Yes.  Personally, I never bother with a preclear, as a rebuild onto them followed by a parity check is the same rough thing as a pre-clear.

Thanks @squid I'll skip the preclear.

So I'll remove 1 parity, plug a new drive in, I'm assuming it will not Auto start the array, and I should just have to select the new drive from the drop down and click start the array?

 

 

Ultimately, I'd like to move my 10ish tv of data to the new drives and not use the (very old) 2&3tb drives, what's my best course of action to get data off the old and on the new

[trurl]

1 minute ago, danimal86 said:

So I'll remove 1 parity, plug a new drive in, I'm assuming it will not Auto start the array

Since you have dual parity and only one of these would be missing, I would expect it to autostart if you have it configured to autostart.

[danimal86]

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

Since you have dual parity and only one of these would be missing, I would expect it to autostart if you have it configured to autostart.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I'll have to set it to not autostart

 

My array will be active during the rebuild?

Edited November 2, 2021 by danimal86

[ChatNoir]

5 hours ago, danimal86 said:

My array will be active during the rebuild?

Yes.

 

But obviously, the less you read and write to the Array, the faster the parity build will go.

[danimal86]

6 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

Yes.

 

But obviously, the less you read and write to the Array, the faster the parity build will go.

Thanks.  I set my rebuild to start last night and its just chugging along at about 200MB/s.  It 11hrs in and looks like its got just over 12hrs to go.  I'll swap the second drive over before i go to sleep and let it run over night again.  I'm always scared to mess with the array, but its been pretty straight forward. 

 

Is the New Config going to be the best way to be able to remove a few drives so i can put in 2 14tb drives?  

[JonathanM]

14 minutes ago, danimal86 said:

 

Is the New Config going to be the best way to be able to remove a few drives so i can put in 2 14tb drives? 

Are you going to copy the data elsewhere before you remove the drives?

[ChatNoir]

13 minutes ago, danimal86 said:

Is the New Config going to be the best way to be able to remove a few drives so i can put in 2 14tb drives?  

I am a bit confused.

 

New config will be the faster method. But you will have to rebuild your parity drives. If you go this way, don't bother building parity now.

Move the data from the drive you want to remove and do a new config.

 

If you want to keep a parity, then simply rebuild lets say disk 1 & 2 on your old parity drives.

[danimal86]

39 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Are you going to copy the data elsewhere before you remove the drives?

I just want to get these old 2 & 3tb drives off the array and use the new 14tb'ers, without loosing any data.  Not moving any data outside of the array.  

[danimal86]

39 minutes ago, ChatNoir said:

I am a bit confused.

 

New config will be the faster method. But you will have to rebuild your parity drives. If you go this way, don't bother building parity now.

Move the data from the drive you want to remove and do a new config.

 

If you want to keep a parity, then simply rebuild lets say disk 1 & 2 on your old parity drives.

I was doing reseach last night and came across the wiki page on Shrink Array.  Thats where i read about the New Config option.

 

Ultimately i want my array to be 2 14tb parity and 2 14tb storage drives on the array.  Those 2 and 3 tb drives are pretty old and well beyond their rated hrs.  

So i can shut down, pull drives 1 & 2 install the new drives, select those for the array, and then rebuild and it should be good at that point.  I would have 42tb at that point.  I guess i could just leave those old drives still installed i guess, or is there an easy way to transfer data off those onto the new drives.  

[trurl]

https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/43651-plug-in-unbalance/

[JonathanM]

22 minutes ago, danimal86 said:

is there an easy way to transfer data off those onto the new drives. 

Manually using the command line

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/115086-trouble-with-removing-drives/?do=findComment&comment=1046060

That's a thread where someone recently did exactly what you are doing.

 

Or using a GUI

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/43651-plug-in-unbalance/?do=findComment&comment=428828

 

[danimal86]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/43651-plug-in-unbalance/

 

1 hour ago, JonathanM said:

Or using a GUI

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/43651-plug-in-unbalance/?do=findComment&comment=428828

 

Now were talking.  I'm liking the looks of the unbalance plugin!

 

I guess i'll have to do it in two steps, i'll move all the data off of two drives that have the least amount of data written to them currently and add the new drives in....and then move the rest of the data over to the new drives and remove the old ones from the array.  sound reasonable?

[JonathanM]

2 minutes ago, danimal86 said:

 

Now were talking.  I'm liking the looks of the unbalance plugin!

 

I guess i'll have to do it in two steps, i'll move all the data off of two drives that have the least amount of data written to them currently and add the new drives in....and then move the rest of the data over to the new drives and remove the old ones from the array.  sound reasonable?

While it would work, it's also one of the least efficient ways of doing it.

 

You could rebuild the two drives with the most data on them from parity, then copy the rest of the drives to the newly rebuilt and expanded drives.

 

BTW, if you read the thread I linked, there are some very good reasons for NOT moving the data, but instead copying it.

 

One very important consideration here is whether you have current backups of everything. Moving around massive amounts of data is a very good way to make a mistake and lose data.

[danimal86]

7 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

While it would work, it's also one of the least efficient ways of doing it.

 

You could rebuild the two drives with the most data on them from parity, then copy the rest of the drives to the newly rebuilt and expanded drives.

 

BTW, if you read the thread I linked, there are some very good reasons for NOT moving the data, but instead copying it.

 

One very important consideration here is whether you have current backups of everything. Moving around massive amounts of data is a very good way to make a mistake and lose data.

I read through it....a lot to take in and try to process.  

Copying seems like a good idea, so i would still need to unbalance 2 drives to be able to install the new ones, then i would be able to copy data one drive at a time to the new drives and if the data is identical then i can remove the drive from the array and then physically from the server?  Is there any way of doing this without the command line?  I've used it before, but not the most comfortable with it.  

[JonathanM]

1 minute ago, danimal86 said:

so i would still need to unbalance 2 drives to be able to install the new ones,

Why? After you have your parity drives upgraded you can simply replace data drives with new ones and parity will recreate the file system.

 

Or are you trying to change file formats at the same time?

[itimpi]

1 minute ago, danimal86 said:

I read through it....a lot to take in and try to process.  

Copying seems like a good idea, so i would still need to unbalance 2 drives to be able to install the new ones, then i would be able to copy data one drive at a time to the new drives and if the data is identical then i can remove the drive from the array and then physically from the server?  Is there any way of doing this without the command line?  I've used it before, but not the most comfortable with it.  

Once you have the 14TB drives in place and built with valid parity then you could follow the normal process of upgrading disk1 and disk2 to 14TB (with their data intact).   When that completes you would have plenty of space to use unBalance (or a manual move process) to move data off the drives you want to remove and then shrink the array to the drives you want to keep.  
 

The relevant procedures are documented in the Storage Management section of the online documentation accessible via the ‘Manual’ link at the bottom of the GUI.

[danimal86]

5 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Why? After you have your parity drives upgraded you can simply replace data drives with new ones and parity will recreate the file system.

 

Or are you trying to change file formats at the same time?

My data drives are in xfs, i wasn't planning on changing formats, but is it something i should do now?

 

You are right, i dont need to move data off the drives first, i can just physically swap drives 1 and 2 with the new ones and re-build.  Can i do 2 at once or should i do one at a time?  

[JonathanM]

XFS is fine, with dual parity you can do 2 at once, whether you want to risk it is up to you. How confident are you in the health of all of your drives? If building and checking parity goes seamlessly, I'd personally be comfortable doing 2 at a time.

 

You should do a parity check after the parity build on the new drives, just as a confidence check.

[danimal86]

1 hour ago, JonathanM said:

XFS is fine, with dual parity you can do 2 at once, whether you want to risk it is up to you. How confident are you in the health of all of your drives? If building and checking parity goes seamlessly, I'd personally be comfortable doing 2 at a time.

 

You should do a parity check after the parity build on the new drives, just as a confidence check.

When i swap the #1 & #2 drives with 14tb drives, it should only write what is on those drives to the new ones right (not like a parity rebuild where its going to take a full 24hrs)?

I'm just trying to figure out how to get all of this done in the next 4 days before i head out of town. 

 

I'm fairly confident in my drives health.  The only time i've had any errors on the drives was when a sata cable died on me, it was a quick fix. They are pretty old though.  

 

Should the parity check after the parity build be done after both parity drives is swapped, or do 1 then parity check, then do the other then parity check

[JonathanM]

Parity has no concept of files, so it's going to write the entire drive capacity regardless of content. It will take a while. However, once it's passed the 3TB mark and it's no longer using the old small drives it will speed up considerably, so you can't really estimate the total time based on the first part.

 

You can just do 1 parity check after both parity drives are replaced.

 

4 days is going to be tight, you may end up leaving the old drives as part of the array even if you get the data moved, and wait for the new config, drive removal, and parity rebuild and check until your next opportunity.

[danimal86]

39 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

Parity has no concept of files, so it's going to write the entire drive capacity regardless of content. It will take a while. However, once it's passed the 3TB mark and it's no longer using the old small drives it will speed up considerably, so you can't really estimate the total time based on the first part.

 

You can just do 1 parity check after both parity drives are replaced.

 

4 days is going to be tight, you may end up leaving the old drives as part of the array even if you get the data moved, and wait for the new config, drive removal, and parity rebuild and check until your next opportunity.

I think you are right.  It seemed like it was going to be close, and i dont want to be rushed.  I'll get the parity drives swapped (second one should be done tomorrow evening) then i'll swap drives 1/2 with new ones and rebuild and call it.  I can try to move data when i get back. 

 

Its interesting, its current position on the parity rebuild is 8.54tb, and its running at about 175mb/s, i think it was running faster at the start (around 200) 

Edited November 2, 2021 by danimal86

[itimpi]

2 hours ago, danimal86 said:

Its interesting, its current position on the parity rebuild is 8.54tb, and its running at about 175mb/s, i think it was running faster at the start (around 200) 

That is quite normal for the speed to go down as one moves towards the inner tracks.   Drives spin at a constant speed,  so because the outer tracks are physically longer they can hold more sectors and the resulting speed is higher.

[danimal86]

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

That is quite normal for the speed to go down as one moves towards the inner tracks.   Drives spin at a constant speed,  so because the outer tracks are physically longer they can hold more sectors and the resulting speed is higher.

That makes total sense!  Thanks for dropping some knowledge on me!

It is decreasing as time goes.  I was hoping it was going to be done by the time i go to sleep, but might have to do it in the morning, or stay up.