Build Process Steps (sanity check)

[drparton21]

Hey guys,

 

So I'm about to spin up my very first UNRAID server.

 

I'm migrating the data from my current fileserver (just running windows). That has a mix of 8-16tb drives that total up to around 150tb or so (with 85tb being used).

 

I have 8 new 18tb drives to start my Unraid server with, and then I'm going to move the other drives over after I've got the data copied, parity built, and I feel good about where things are.

Because I do still need to run Windows on my fileserver (for various services, some of which I can offload/replace with containers later) --- I plan to clone the OS drive in that. 

 

So, in my head, these are the steps I should take:

 

Build new server, put in six of my eight 18tb drives. Boot up unraid, and create a pool with them. Robocopy the data from one share to the other.

After the data finally finishes copying, do a second robocopy to pick up any files that changed in the meantime (I'm sure there will be some). Then, add my two other drives in to build parity. After parity is built and things have ran for a while, start adding the other drives (should I do several at once, one at a time, etc.?). These will get added to the same array.

 

For the windows VM, I have Macrium Reflect that I believe I could use to clone the OS from the old server to the new VM. I suppose I'd create the pool (NVME drive, solo), and set the VM to have a drive with no OS, then boot the VM to my USB with Macrium on it?

 

Or, would it be beneficial/possible for me to do this directly to the NVME drive, without making a pool for it? Windows will be the only thing running on that NVME. Pros/cons of doing it that way, if it's even possible?

 

Also, for the Windows instance, are there drivers that I should install before I clone it?

 

Afterwards, I suppose I'll map the share pool to the Windows VM. Since it'll be handling a lot of read/write to that, is there a better way to do that than traditional windows mapping? 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[drparton21]

The discord was super helpful for this. Updating with answers I receive there in case other people have similar questions.

 

Robocopy idea is perfectly reasonable.

Bare metal NVME is doable and the Macrium clone *should* work.

General structure of the plan is sound, adding in the parity drives after the initial data copy will be faster.

 

VIRTIOFS sounds like the ticket to get what I want out of the filesystem in windows. Basically, it allows the OS to see the array/share as a local NTFS drive.

 

Huge thank you to both DiscoverIt and smdion over on the discord!