Replace/upgrade parity question.

[zenmak]

Hi All,

 

I have a friend that is upgrading his array from 2tb to 8tb drives.  He currently has 1 2tb parity drive and a few 2tb data drives in the array.  He had a question that he asked me and I wasn't sure, so I said I would post it and ask for him.  

 

The question.. I know he install 2 8tb parity drives, do a new config and have dual parity rebuild.  If he takes out his current 2tb parity drive and replaces it with the 2 8tb ones and let's say a data drive fails during rebuild, can he then shut the system down, take out the 2 8tb new parity drives, put in the old parity drive, power on the system, do a new config, say parity is valid, then recover the failed data drive?  I know it's a lot, but it is just a question we both had, like a just in case/what if type of thing.

 

The safest way, correct me if I'm wrong, is to have him shut down, put in a 2nd parity disk, so he'd have 1 2tb, and 1 8tb, do a new config, assign the 2nd new 8tb drive and let it rebuild, then repeat for the other 2tb drive, correct?

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

 

[apandey]

1 hour ago, zenmak said:

let's say a data drive fails during rebuild, can he then shut the system down, take out the 2 8tb new parity drives, put in the old parity drive, power on the system, do a new config, say parity is valid, then recover the failed data drive?

Yes, assuming no data has changed on the remaining valid data drives. Parity itself is not enough to rebuild a drive, it needs parity + data drives. The data drives should be unchanged to match what was on offlined parity drive

 

1 hour ago, zenmak said:

The safest way, correct me if I'm wrong, is to have him shut down, put in a 2nd parity disk, so he'd have 1 2tb, and 1 8tb, do a new config, assign the 2nd new 8tb drive and let it rebuild, then repeat for the other 2tb drive, correct?

If the goal is to have dual parity, then yes, that's fine. I am assuming there are separate backups for any important data anyway