Adding 2 new drives to Unraid

[nanohits]

I am getting 2 new 14TB drives and will need to decommision 2 older 4TB that are starting to get errors from the parity and then install these new drives. What is the process to decommision them? do I just remove the old 4TB drives, install the new drives, pre clear and format them and start the array?

 

My parity drive is already a 14TB drive.

Edited January 15, 2023 by nanohits

[trurl]

Your post is completely unreadable in light mode. Please don't color background or fonts. Try again.

[nanohits]

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

Your post is completely unreadable in light mode. Please don't color background or fonts. Try again.

 

I have never colored or or used any different fonts. THis is how it looks for me: 

 

https://d.pr/i/TgdqYy

 

I have edited it in non dark mode. Should be ok now?

Edited January 15, 2023 by nanohits

[trurl]

This is how it looks to me

[nanohits]

Just now, trurl said:

This is how it looks to me

 

I have corrected it in light mode. This must be a bug in their forum software as I just added the post and hit the post button without making any changes to color.

[trurl]

9 minutes ago, nanohits said:

I am getting 2 new 14TB drives and will need to decommision 2 older 4TB that are starting to get errors from the parity and then install these new drives. What is the process to decommision them? do I just remove the old 4TB drives, install the new drives, pre clear and format them and start the array?

 

My parity drive is already a 14TB drive.

I assume you want to keep the data from the older disks by rebuilding them onto the new disks?

[nanohits]

Just now, trurl said:

I assume you want to keep the data from the older disks by rebuilding them onto the new disks?

 

Yeah preferably. 

[trurl]

Preclear optional

 

If you only have single parity, you can only rebuild one at a time. Probably better to rebuild one at a time even if you have dual parity.

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Storage_Management#Normal_replacement

 

14 minutes ago, nanohits said:

starting to get errors from the parity

Not entirely clear what you mean by that.

 

[trurl]

7 minutes ago, nanohits said:

must be a bug in their forum software

Doesn't happen to other people.

[trurl]

7 minutes ago, trurl said:

format them

Please don't use the word format when talking about replacing disks. Don't even think it.

 

Do you know what format means?

[nanohits]

Just now, trurl said:

Please don't use the word format when talking about replacing disks. Don't even think it.

 

Do you know what format means?

 

I have always done this.  This is what I did when I first installed all the drives in Unraid. Pre clear then format and then add to the array and had no issues. I am not talking about formatting the drives I already have in Unraid.

[itimpi]

9 minutes ago, nanohits said:

 

I have always done this.  This is what I did when I first installed all the drives in Unraid. Pre clear then format and then add to the array and had no issues. I am not talking about formatting the drives I already have in Unraid.

The format achieves nothing as Unraid is going to overwrite every sector on the drive when you add it thus destroying the results of the format.

[trurl]

Just now, nanohits said:

Pre clear then format

When you format a clear disk, it is no longer clear. If you don't already have valid parity you don't need a clear disk. If you add a formatted disk to an array that already has valid parity, Unraid will clear it so parity remains valid.

 

5 minutes ago, trurl said:

Do you know what format means?

Format means "write an empty filesystem (of some specific type) to this disk". That is what it has always meant in every OS you have ever used.

 

When replacing a disk for rebuild, formatting the replacement disk is completely pointless. The replacement disk is going to be completely overwritten by rebuild. Doesn't matter at all what is already on the disk, freshly formatted empty filesystem, clear, full of pron, whatever.

 

The main thing I worry about is someone will format a disk in the array. Many have made that mistake thinking they can rebuild. Even if the array disk is missing/disabled/emulated/unmountable. When you format a disk in the parity array, Unraid treats that write operation exactly as it does any other, by updating parity so it remains valid. So after formatting a disk in the parity array, the only thing that can be rebuilt is an empty filesystem.

 

 

[nanohits]

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

When you format a clear disk, it is no longer clear. If you don't already have valid parity you don't need a clear disk. If you add a formatted disk to an array that already has valid parity, Unraid will clear it so parity remains valid.

 

Format means "write an empty filesystem (of some specific type) to this disk". That is what it has always meant in every OS you have ever used.

 

When replacing a disk for rebuild, formatting the replacement disk is completely pointless. The replacement disk is going to be completely overwritten by rebuild. Doesn't matter at all what is already on the disk, freshly formatted empty filesystem, clear, full of pron, whatever.

 

The main thing I worry about is someone will format a disk in the array. Many have made that mistake thinking they can rebuild. Even if the array disk is missing/disabled/emulated/unmountable. When you format a disk in the parity array, Unraid treats that write operation exactly as it does any other, by updating parity so it remains valid. So after formatting a disk in the parity array, the only thing that can be rebuilt is an empty filesystem.

 

 

Fair enough. So what should I do in this case. Just remive the 2 X old 4TB drives and stick in the new 2 X 14TB drives and add them to array?

[apandey]

1 hour ago, nanohits said:

Fair enough. So what should I do in this case. Just remive the 2 X old 4TB drives and stick in the new 2 X 14TB drives and add them to array?

Hard to say without understanding your array. Do you have parity? Single or Double? 

If you want to avoid lots of questions, post diagnostics so it's clear what your current setup is and what you want to do

 

I would always pre clear, to avoid running into a disk failure while adding it to the array. If directly adding, I will be adding them one-by-one and wait for clear to happen even if I have dual parity

Edited January 16, 2023 by apandey

[nanohits]

37 minutes ago, apandey said:

Hard to say without understanding your array. Do you have parity? Single or Double? 

If you want to avoid lots of questions, post diagnostics so it's clear what your current setup is and what you want to do

 

I would always pre clear, to avoid running into a disk failure while adding it to the array. If directly adding, I will be adding them one-by-one and wait for clear to happen even if I have dual parity

So single parity of 1 X 14TB drive. 

Current setup is I have 8 drives, 6 of them are 14TB and 2 of them are 4 TB. One of the drives which is 14TB is a parity drive. The rest are part of the array as data. Now I started seeing some errors in one of the 4TB drive and I decided to replace these 2 4TB drives with 14TB. So what I want to do is replace those 2 drives and add them to the array.

[apandey]

6 minutes ago, nanohits said:

So single parity of 1 X 14TB drive. 

Current setup is I have 8 drives, 6 of them are 14TB and 2 of them are 4 TB. One of the drives which is 14TB is a parity drive. The rest are part of the array as data. Now I started seeing some errors in one of the 4TB drive and I decided to replace these 2 4TB drives with 14TB. So what I want to do is replace those 2 drives and add them to the array.

You should replace and rebuild one drive at a time as explained here: https://wiki.unraid.net/Replacing_a_Data_Drive

This is assuming your array is currently healthy with valid parity. Have to assume a lot of things without diagnostics

[trurl]

3 hours ago, nanohits said:

add them to array?

ADD mean assign disks to new slots in the array. You want to REPLACE disks, which means you assign them to the same slot as the disk you are replacing.

 

3 hours ago, trurl said:

If you only have single parity, you can only rebuild one at a time. Probably better to rebuild one at a time even if you have dual parity.

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Storage_Management#Normal_replacement

 

[nanohits]

1 minute ago, trurl said:

ADD mean assign disks to new slots in the array. You want to REPLACE disks, which means you assign them to the same slot as the disk you are replacing.

 

 

Thank you so much. Thats helps.