I have to replace 8 x 2TB drives with 8 x used 6TB drives. I understand pre-clearing the replacement drive is recommended. Pre-clearing is time consuming and so is the subsequent parity rebuilding to the replacement drive. To replace the 8 drives faster, can I secure wipe (i.e., via DBAN Boot and Nuke) and then put them in the Unraid box to replace the smaller drive and start the parity rebuild (skipping the pre-clear process)??

23 minutes ago, digity said:

Pre-clearing is time consuming

Preclear and wipe are not the same.  They may both write 0s to every storage sector on the drive (some wipes do not do this) but preclear writes a special signature to the drive that tells Unraid it is precleared and can be added to the array without affecting parity and causing a parity rebuild.  If you just wipe a drive, Unraid will preclear it anyway before adding it to the array.

Edited April 29, 20242 yr by Hoopster

13 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

Preclear and wipe are not the same.  They may both write 0s to every storage sector on the drive (some wipes do not do this) but preclear writes a special signature to the drive that tells Unraid it is precleared and can be added to the array without affecting parity and causing a parity rebuild.  If you just wipe a drive, Unraid will preclear it anyway before adding it to the array.

 

Is there a way to pre-clear 8 drives simultaneously on another computer then physically add it to the Unraid server to replace the smaller drives one at a time?

 

I'm just trying to cut down the total time replace 8 drives. I don't have space in the Unraid server for additional drives, but I have a spare 12 bay computer I perform batch hard drive stuff like secure wipes.

12 hours ago, digity said:

then physically add it to the Unraid server to replace the smaller drives one at a time?

If you are rebuilding the smaller drives to the new ones there is no need for them to be clear. It's only when you add new data slots to an already parity protected array that the disk must be clear.