So I recently added another 4TB drive to my array and some weird stuff started happening with it not mounting - and various other errors. I won't detail them as they're now resolved. The point is that while all this was going on I searched here and it seemed that my Marvell chipset PCIe to SATA 4 port card was the likely problem since the new 4TB drive was the only array drive connected to this card - the other device connected to this card being an optical drive.

 

So assuming the whole parity check thing would end badly with the Marvell PCIe card , I ordered a new PCIe card (Chip JMICRON+JMB582) - BUT to my surprise once the whole process of formatting and parity checking was finished, the new drive lit up green for 'normal operation'.

 

So the question is, can I simply swap out the Marvell PCIe card for the new JMicron card when it arrives tomorrow? Will that muck up the array at all - can't see why it should just double checking?

 

And should I? I mean in an, "if it ain't broke" sense? Right now, there's nothing on the new drive so I'm wondering if  "Marvell" related problems - the reason they're so actively recommended against here -  might only start happening once the drive is regularly having data written to it and being read from as part of the array?

 

Devices are tracked by serial number, changing controllers is not a problem for Unraid, as long as no RAID controllers are involved.