Noob here, I've had a hard time finding a thread addressing this specific scenario but perhaps this has already been asked and someone would kindly link me the thread.

 

I currently have a small Unraid build with 2x 8TB in the array (1 parity, 1 data), and 2x 500GB SATA SSDs as a cache. I'm running Unraid 6.9.2 and I have a number of docker containers, a VM, and an unassigned drive for the VM.

I have purchased 2x 14TB drives, and my intent is to migrate the 2x 8TB array over to the 2x 14TB array, and once everything is working, I can then add the 2x 8TBs to the array as well, for a 30TB array.

 

What I am trying to understand is: what is the safest way to perform this migration? Do I swap the parity drive out for a 14TB, rebuild parity, then swap out the data drive for a 14TB and rebuild data? Or is there a way to move everything over in one go?

 

Thanks!

2 minutes ago, dingwat said:

what is the safest way to perform this migration? Do I swap the parity drive out for a 14TB, rebuild parity, then swap out the data drive for a 14TB and rebuild data?

That would be my recommendation. The data will still remain on the removed drives until you add them back in, so that's pretty safe.

2 minutes ago, JonathanM said:

That would be my recommendation. The data will still remain on the removed drives until you add them back in, so that's pretty safe.

And Unraid doesn't have any issue with rebuilding a disk that's now a different size? I've (thankfully) never had to rebuild my array, so I'm not totally familiar with the rebuild process.

14 minutes ago, dingwat said:

And Unraid doesn't have any issue with rebuilding a disk that's now a different size? I've (thankfully) never had to rebuild my array, so I'm not totally familiar with the rebuild process.

It rebuilds and expands to fit the new drive.

No need to rebuild a data drive since you intend to have those 8TB in the array in the end, so you could assign 14 TB as parity and then add that other 14TB and the former 8TB parity as new data drives. The original 8TB data drive would keep its data, and you would format the new data drives.

 

You can do it all at once since you are rebuilding parity anyway. Tools - New Config, assign first 14TB to parity, assign other disks in whatever order you want, then when you start the array, parity will build on the disk assigned as parity, and other disks won't be affected. The new 14TB data drive and 8TB former parity drive can be formatted while parity is building or after.

JonathanM and trurl, thank you for your help, much appreciated, I will be starting the process today.

Thanks for the prompt responses. I now have a healthy 30TB array!