HD housekeeping...

[opentoe]

I came across another 18TB Gold drive which I want to add to the array. But I want to also remove 2 or 3 old 4TB drives I have installed. I know this isn't going to take a second, but what suggestions would anyone have to do this the quickest way? Since I cannot remove 2 data drives at once I was going to remove 1 4TB drive, let the system rebuild. Then remove another, let the system rebuild, and then once more, remove another 4TB, let the system rebuild. That's 3 parity checks which usually take 24 hours each, so apparently this is going to take a long time. After the 4TB drives are out then I'll just install the 18TB and no parity check at that time. There isn't any possible way to remove 2 data drives at a time, right? What if I was to move all the data off of them using a stable move command or a plugin like UNBALANCE if it still works. Then the parity check will be pretty quick since there would be no data on those drives anyway, correct?

[JonathanM]

11 minutes ago, opentoe said:

Since I cannot remove 2 data drives at once

Why?

 

12 minutes ago, opentoe said:

the parity check will be pretty quick since there would be no data on those drives anyway

Parity covers all bits on all drives, used, unused, unformatted, corrupt, doesn't matter.

 

Empty the drives you want to remove by whatever method works for you, then remove them, add the new drives, and set a new config with only the drives you want to keep and rebuild parity from there.

 

 

[opentoe]

I guess I have this notion in my mind I cannot remove 2 drives that have data on them. If I need to empty them first, no problem. Using a terminal and MC is the quickest. But to confirm, they do have to be empty prior to removing them, correct? And thank you Jon.

 

 

[opentoe]

On 4/26/2022 at 11:05 PM, JonathanM said:

Why?

 

Parity covers all bits on all drives, used, unused, unformatted, corrupt, doesn't matter.

 

Empty the drives you want to remove by whatever method works for you, then remove them, add the new drives, and set a new config with only the drives you want to keep and rebuild parity from there.

 

 

What would your recommendation be to use for the moving files off the 4TB drives? I see the data I need to move on disk shares but am not sure that would screw up parity moving from disk share to disk or disk to array.

 

 

[JonathanM]

Unbalance plugin.

[trurl]

I assume you already have 18TB parity though you say parity check takes 24 hours. I would be surprised if 18TB parity check would be nearly that fast.

 

Replace one of the disks with the 18TB and rebuild. Copy data from disks to be removed to that new disk since it has plenty of capacity. Remove the copied disks, New Config without them, and rebuild parity. Don't do anything with the original disks until you are satisfied with the results.

 

You can use Midnight Commander for that if you are comfortable with it. Only copy from disk to disk, don't get user shares involved.  I seldom work with user shares at all in mc.

 

Unraid v6.10rc3+ also has a file manager plugin you could use.

 

Parity is always maintained realtime whenever you write (write, move, copy, delete, format) any array disk whatever method you use.

[bonienl]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

I assume you already have 18TB parity though you say parity check takes 24 hours. I would be surprised if 18TB parity check would be nearly that fast.

 

My main server consists of 18TB disks only (and dual parity), a parity check runs just over a day.

 

[ChatNoir]

With my 2x 6TB and some 14TBs the check is 35 hours.

The OP has smaller drives, so I doubt the 18TB are already installed as Parity.

[trurl]

6 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

doubt the 18TB are already installed as Parity

If not then of course (each) parity must be at least as large as any data disk so if (each) parity isn't already 18TB or larger that disk will have to go to a parity slot.

[opentoe]

The status that I am at now is I cleared out one 4TB drive. Good. Then I installed the new 18TB without removing any drives yet. When unraid started a pre-clear automatically started. I did not install a pre-clear plugin, but when I selected TOOLS / DISK UTILITIES I clicked on PRECLEAR DISK and would of though I'd see the preclear going there. I do not. Right now all I see is on my dashboard upper right corner is some preclear information. It indicates it will take 17 hours to complete. I'm not sure I want to wait that long. Honestly I haven't done a preclear in ages. I guess I'm walking on ice. Does everyone still perform preclears? Also the preclear that is running, this obviously kicked off by itself, is there a way to cancel it and not have unraid keep trying to preclear it? I mean if I have to wait, no big deal, just a little impatient to get this little upgrade done. Once this new disk is all ready I will run unbalance again and utilize the new drive to dump the old 4TB drives out.

[opentoe]

13 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

With my 2x 6TB and some 14TBs the check is 35 hours.

The OP has smaller drives, so I doubt the 18TB are already installed as Parity.

I already have an 18TB as my parity. I installed that several weeks ago knowing I would be doing this. Parity was rebuilt with no errors.

[bonienl]

I have upgraded my main system from 10TB disks to 18TB disks, just by replacing existing disks with new disks and let the system rebuild the data onto the new disk.

Haven't used preclear in ages, and in my view it isn't really needed. By running a data rebuild and subsequent non-correcting parity check, I am pretty confident my new disks are working fine and I always have to original disk as a backup.

 

[opentoe]

when I cancel the preclear it just sits at a blue square and I cannot get it to sink into the array. Is there a special process I need to do prior to getting that new drive ready or something? I do really want to stop it, but absorb the disk into the array. Not let unraid see it as an un precleared drive so it keeps kicking off that parity.

 

Suggestions on that? I'm always VERY hesitant when performing disk operations since I have 120TB array and 90TB of it being used. So me always asking questions I "should" know is just reinforcement that I am correct.

[trurl]

15 hours ago, opentoe said:

... I installed the new 18TB without removing any drives yet. When unraid started a pre-clear automatically started. I did not install a pre-clear plugin, but when I selected TOOLS / DISK UTILITIES I clicked on PRECLEAR DISK and would of though I'd see the preclear going there. I do not. Right now all I see is on my dashboard upper right corner is some preclear information. It indicates it will take 17 hours to complete. I'm not sure I want to wait that long. Honestly I haven't done a preclear in ages. I guess I'm walking on ice. Does everyone still perform preclears? Also the preclear that is running, this obviously kicked off by itself, is there a way to cancel it and not have unraid keep trying to preclear it? I mean if I have to wait, no big deal, just a little impatient to get this little upgrade done. Once this new disk is all ready I will run unbalance again and utilize the new drive to dump the old 4TB drives out.

Something odd about your description. There is no Tools - Disk Utilities. And there is no preclear without a preclear plugin.

 

Attach diagnostics and screenshot to your NEXT post in this thread.

[opentoe]

13 hours ago, trurl said:

Something odd about your description. There is no Tools - Disk Utilities. And there is no preclear without a preclear plugin.

 

Attach diagnostics and screenshot to your NEXT post in this thread.

I took a quick screen shot.

 

UPDATE: I just reviewed my plugin list and there is UNNASSIGNED DEVICES PRECLEAR there. When I click on that it does show me the header of what would be values if a disk was there doing a preclear. What was odd with mine, the precleear started by itself but never showed up on that page. If this is the plugin that kicked off my disk preclear is it supposed to show up on that preclear page?

 

 

sun-diagnostics-20220430-0420.zip

Edited April 30, 2022 by opentoe

[opentoe]

Anyway, moving right along. Since the hours past fast I let the preclear finish on its own. Once that was done, a quick format and 18TB added to the array. Now I'm moving content off the 2nd 4TB drive that I want to remove from the system. I do have 2 more, so I may get another 18TB and just remove all the 4TB drives. Why I'm trying to do this is because the results of a diskspeed test really show these 4TB drives are pretty significantly slower than the 8TB, 10TB, 18TB drives. And the time on a couple of these drives were 7+ years. Little long in the tooth. So my next step would be to physically remove the empty 4TB drives then select NEW CONFIG and I think once again a parity will be kicked off again. All those who supported me with answering my questions and helping me out, thank you.