Looking for a little guidance on moving array from an existing Unraid server into a different already existing Unraid server

[glave]

I have two Unraid servers, one is filled with storage and the other mostly doing container things. For ease of reference, I'll call them diskUnraid and dockerUnraid.

dockerUnraid only has 2 drives in it's array, and they are empty. The primary stuff happening there are pool devices and containers. I'm converting diskUnraid to be a DAS, and dockerUnraid will be using those drives now.

I know I will need to first destroy the array on dockerUnraid but I'm wondering on how I bring in the drives from diskUnraid and keep the data intact. Do I just populate them all inside dockerUnraid in the exact same drive assignments they had in diskUnraid? Will parity (I have dual) be destroyed?

 

 

[Terebi]

You should be able to just pull the drives out of the diskUnraid and add them to dockerUnraid transparently. Any shares that exist on diskUnraid will suddenly be on dockerUnraid. 

 

You will have to reconfigure cache/mover settings on dockerUnraid for any new shares. Shares both have will use the diskUnraid settings to start with. 

 

If you have parity on diskUnraid, it will need to be rebuilt from scratch (unless).  If you truly have nothing nothing in dockerunraid, you could remove the empty dockerunraid disks from the array, pull overdisk unraid array and parity in tact, then run pre-clear on the dockerunraid disks to add them in without breaking parity.  Since you are using dual parity, disk order IS important.  

[glave]

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Any shares that exist on diskUnraid will suddenly be on dockerUnraid. 

Would it? I'm not moving the flash drive at all.

 

The existing disks in dockerUnraid's array are not a priority at all. They are just two 300gb 2.5" disks with no data. This is purely about getting diskUnraid's drives reconnected without losing data from the original array on diskUnraid.

[Frank1940]

It sounds like you are doing a simple upgrade of server hardware (MB, PS, RAM, and enclosure) in that case, you move not only the HD's and cache disks but also the Unraid USB boot disk.  When you boot up after doing this, you should have all your hard disks properly assigned and the data intact and, hopefully, all the Dockers and plugins working properly.  If you have any VMs set up, that is a more dicey situation.  (Unraid is largely hardware agnostic as the Actual OS is installed from scratch every time the  server boots up.  There are a few devices that sometimes cause plug-and-play issues but you should already know about them as you had to address them when you set Unraid on that hardware previously.) 

 

If this isn't the case, what is going on beyond this?  

Edited December 7, 2023 by Frank1940

[glave]

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It sounds like you are doing a simple upgrade of server hardware (MB, PS, RAM, and enclosure) in that case, you move not only the HD's and cache disks but also the Unraid USB boot disk.

That's not really what I'm doing here. I'm taking the drives out of an existing Unraid server and attaching to a different existing Unraid server. This existing server has a lot of containers already running on it.

[Frank1940]

Read here:

     https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#reset-the-array-configuration

 

Remember, whatever you do, never, NEVER, NEVER click to start an operation that will format any one of your disks.  (Formatting a disk will always cause a data loss!!!!)  If you still have questions, Post back and ask them.  However, most of us have never done what you are proposing to do. So it is new ground for most of us.  IF you run into problems, I can ping a super Guru who can provide further assistance. 

[trurl]

There must not be any RAID controllers involved in either system.

 

Assuming you only use the diskUnraid disks for array drives in dockerUnraid, and don't keep any existing dockerUnraid array drives, then New Config as linked above should work and your parity will still be valid if all array drives are assigned exactly as they were in diskUnraid. So you can check the parity valid box before starting the array and it won't rebuild parity. A parity check after would be a good idea just to confirm.

[glave]

54 minutes ago, trurl said:

There must not be any RAID controllers involved in either system.

LSI 9300-16i in IT mode? That's in containerUnraid and is what the drives will attach to. Would that be ok?

[JorgeB]

LSI in IT mode is fine.

[Terebi]

23 hours ago, glave said:

Would it? I'm not moving the flash drive at all.

 

The existing disks in dockerUnraid's array are not a priority at all. They are just two 300gb 2.5" disks with no data. This is purely about getting diskUnraid's drives reconnected without losing data from the original array on diskUnraid.

 

The configuration of the shares is in the flash. But the shares themselves are on the array. When the array is moved into the other docker, unraid will notice them there, and add them into the shares list automatically (though they will not have cache settings etc set correctly)