Upgrading all drives - Multiple Parity Checks?

[PureLoneWolf]

Hi all

 

I run Unraid on my Gen 10 Microserver (4 slots) and am planning to upgrade every drive to larger drives.  Right now I am running a Parity Check (which as I haven't replaced my Parity Drive yet, I guess wasn't necessary?).  Still, once that completes, my process is going to be:

 

1. Disable array auto start
2. Disable docker auto start
3. Power down server
4. Replace parity drive with larger drive
5. Power up server
6. Assign new drive as parity
7. Start array
8. Let parity build complete

 

Question 1 would be - Do I need to unassign the current parity before shutting down, or are steps 1-8 Ok as they are?

 

Once that completes, I will move on to upgrading the data drives which, iirc, is the same process. 

 

I do plan on allowing a couple of dockers to run (Emby to manage my media, although I won't add new media until the upgrades are complete so only watched status changes...and a recipes app which I need regularly, but will only be read from).

 

My next question is, should I run a parity check before each drive upgrade?  The only reason I ask is that I am replacing 14tb drives with 18tb drives, so a parity check takes about 30 hours and, I am assuming, the rebuild will likely take longer than that...

Thanks in advance for people having the patience to respond to similar questions on a regular basis... I did have a search around but, as ever, just managed to confuse myself and thought it better to just ask

 

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, PureLoneWolf said:

should I run a parity check before each drive upgrade?

Yes, although if you are keeping all replaced drives intact, you could possibly recover the data from the old drives if a rebuild goes south.

 

Sorry if I didn't clear things up much, but it really is your choice, based on how safe you want to be.