advice on plan to reformat drive from RFS to XFS

[CaptainTivo]

I have been getting a warning "reiserfs on disk8" and I am running out of space on one of my shares so I thought I would fix both problems.

The only disk I have that is RFS formatted is disk8 (4 TB)

I have a new disk (10 TB) which I have pre-cleared.

I would like to:

1. add the new 10 TB disk to the array

2. move the data from disk8 (RFS) to the new disk

3. reformat disk8 to XFS

At first, I planned to simply add the new disk to the array and use rsync to copy the data from the old RFS disk to the new one and then shrink the array.  But multiple sources say the better way is to simply rebuild the disk.

 

Here is my plan:

1. Replace disk8 with the new 10 TB disk

  a. stop array

  b. unassign disk8

  c. start array

  d. stop array

  e. assign 10TB disk to slot disk8

  f. start the array - this will rebuild the data from old disk8 (4 TB) onto new disk8 (10 TB)

When will all the data be copied to the new disk8?

How will I know when to copy is finished?

2. preclear old disk8 RFS disk

3. add old disk8 to array, format as SFS and assign it to share Backup1

  a. stop array

  b. assign old disk8 to a new slot

  c. start array

  d. since disk have been pre-cleared, now format disk as XFS

  e. after disk is mounted, add this disk to Backup1 share

 

I know this extremely detailed but I just don't do this stuff often and I have upgraded the Unraid since then so I want to be sure that I have all the details right.

 

Any advice/comments are appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[itimpi]

Your original idea is what you need to do.   

The rebuild process cannot change the file system so going that route you would simply end up with a 10TB disk in ReiserFS format.

[CaptainTivo]

15 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Your original idea is what you need to do.   

The rebuild process cannot change the file system so going that route you would simply end up with a 10TB disk in ReiserFS format.

D'oh!  Of course, the reconstructed disk would be bit-for-bit, wouldn't it?

See, I knew I should ask first before acting!  I have never before had to reformat a disk.

Ok. Plan B.

Should I use unbalance or just rsync myself?

 

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, CaptainTivo said:

Should I use unbalance or just rsync myself?

Really up to you.   If you are familiar with rsync I would tend to use it as it gives you more control.