Migrate to XFS

[rpearson]

I have an unRaid system with an array of 5 devices (an 8 Tb Parity Disk and 4 each 8 Tb disks, plus a 1 Tb Cache) running on a small Supermicro X7SPA-H board with an Intel Atom processor. I have added bigger disks as I filled the original disks. Otherwise, this array has been running trouble-free since 2013, and it is absolutely the BEST software I have ever used. 

I am planning to move this all to a Supermicro board with dual Intel Xeon LGA2011v2 processors. When I first installed unRaid, I used reiserfs as my file system. Before I move it over - I have considered migrating to XFS because I have read that XFS is more reliable, and faster (for more than  2 disks). I don't really want to buy more than another 1 or 2 disks. I had a couple of questions:

1. Is this change to XFS worth making?

2. I wondered if I could simply 1. go to <Settings> <Disk Settings> <Default File System> and set default to XFS, shut down the array, remove and replace a disk, and restart and rebuild the array (will it rebuild with XFS if I set the default)? Then move to the next disk until I finished rebuilding all 4 disks? Does it hurt to change the default, even though it has previously been reiserfs.

3. Assuming this is worth doing, Is there a better way to do it (I have been thinking of a Netcat Tar Pipe onto a new disk on a different, temporary unRaid instance and then run through all 4 disks) approach - but am way over my head there). 

I apologize if there is a topic on this - but I could not seem to find one. 

Thanks,

Richard

[trurl]

You can change the default, and it will apply to new disks. But parity doesn't know anything about filesystems, it is all just bits to parity. So rebuild is bit-for-bit the same as the original.

 

Since all your disks are the same size, doesn't matter which you do first.

 

Just add another 8TB to the array, format as XFS, copy all files from one of the other disks to the new XFS disk.

Reformat the already copied disk as XFS, copy all files from one of the other disks to that XFS disk.

Repeat as necessary.

 

Do any of your disks have SMART warnings on the Dashboard?

Do you have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable?

[rpearson]

12 hours ago, trurl said:

You can change the default, and it will apply to new disks. But parity doesn't know anything about filesystems, it is all just bits to parity. So rebuild is bit-for-bit the same as the original.

 

Since all your disks are the same size, doesn't matter which you do first.

 

Just add another 8TB to the array, format as XFS, copy all files from one of the other disks to the new XFS disk.

Reformat the already copied disk as XFS, copy all files from one of the other disks to that XFS disk.

Repeat as necessary.

 

Do any of your disks have SMART warnings on the Dashboard?

Do you have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable?

Thanks for your help - I sincerely appreciate it.

I do not have any Smart Warnings showing. But I do not really have another copy of the important things on the unRaid array - so will back them up on another disk pronto. 

I apologize for this question in advance - but how is the best way to "copy all files from one of the other disks to the new XFS disk"? I do not really have visibility to the individual files and have spread my shares across disks to better utilize the space. 

Thanks again for your help. 

 

[trurl]

When I did this I just used mc (Midnight Commander), which is how I always work directly with the disks. Others have done various things from the command line, including extra steps to verify the copy etc. I didn't bother with that since I have good (enough) backups.

 

There was a really long multipage thread about the conversion when v6 was first introduced, but this pinned topic in General Support contains a wiki link to more detailed and careful procedures

 

[rpearson]

11 hours ago, trurl said:

When I did this I just used mc (Midnight Commander), which is how I always work directly with the disks. Others have done various things from the command line, including extra steps to verify the copy etc. I didn't bother with that since I have good (enough) backups.

 

There was a really long multipage thread about the conversion when v6 was first introduced, but this pinned topic in General Support contains a wiki link to more detailed and careful procedures

 

Thanks for the lead to Midnight Commander and for the link to best practices for converting from RFS to XFS. I am reading through the link, and trying to absorb it. For me - I did not understand that restore actually restored exactly what was there before - down to the file system.  Thanks again. 

[johnzimm]

On 12/13/2021 at 9:03 PM, trurl said:

Reformat the already copied disk as XFS, copy all files from one of the other disks to that XFS disk.

I am converting my disks to XFS... I moved everything off Drive 1 with unbalance. Then I stopped array, unassigned drive 1. I formatted it as XFS, and reassigned it as drive 1 but the Parity keeps rebuilding it and changing it back to rsf. Do I need to assign it to a different slot... or do I need to do a new config each time? Thank you

Edited March 10, 2022 by johnzimm

[JonathanM]

19 minutes ago, johnzimm said:

Then I stopped array, unassigned drive 1. I formatted it as XFS, and reassigned it as drive 1 but the Parity keeps rebuilding it and changing it back to rsf.

That's how parity works. When a drive is disabled, it emulates whatever is was on the disk, file system inclusive. You need to click on disk1 and change the desired format, then format the drive after you start the array.

 

Any changes you make to a drive NOT currently in the array will be overwritten if the disk is used to rebuild a valid array slot.

 

Did you read through this thread that you replied to?

[trurl]

You need to let Unraid format the drive while it is in the array.

 

52 minutes ago, johnzimm said:

stopped array, unassigned drive 1

At this point, the drive, with its original empty rfs filesystem, is emulated by parity.

 

53 minutes ago, johnzimm said:

formatted it as XFS

Since you formatted it outside the array, the emulated disk is still empty rfs filesystem.

 

54 minutes ago, johnzimm said:

reassigned it as drive 1 but the Parity keeps rebuilding it

The emulated empty rfs filesystem is rebuilt

[itimpi]

55 minutes ago, johnzimm said:

Then I stopped array, unassigned drive 1. I formatted it as XFS, and reassigned it as drive 1

 

these are the wrong steps  What you should at this stage is:

• Stop array
• Click on the drive on the Main tab and change the format to be XFS
• Start the array
• The drive should now show as unmountable and Unraid should be offering the option to format unmountable drives
• Make sure it is the only drive showing to be formatted and if so go ahead with the format.

The format should only take a minute or so and then the drive is ready for use.

 

[johnzimm]

3 hours ago, itimpi said:

 

• Stop array
• Click on the drive on the Main tab and change the format to be XFS
• Start the array
• The drive should now show as unmountable and Unraid should be offering the option to format unmountable drives
• Make sure it is the only drive showing to be formatted and if so go ahead with the format.

 

That did it, thanks itimpi.