Before I start this is likely to be a long post, so sorry about that as I want to give as much detail as I can. I'm tight on budget £££. A few things are on the way to me in the post.

 

I have Unraid Plus (up to 12 devices). I use a Fractal Design 804. Internally I will max out at 10, leaving some spare devices for external plug ins when needed. This is an always on system. If I was to use the M2 slot for an SSD (replacing SATA 5/6) this would reduce devices to 9 - LSI x4, MB x4, M2.

 

My main Windows system (still on 7) and my unraid system have the same motherboard and CPU plus 16 GB ram:

Asus H97M-Plus, I5 4460, Corsair ram.

 

My intention is to re-purpose my current main windows PC into a backup server which I will only have on occasionally as often as I need to keep my back up reasonably up to date (may be once a month, on average) dependent on how much more new data I am putting on the main unraid box. It won't be 'always on'. I am building a new main Windows 10 PC to replace this one.

 

Unraid Box:Fractal Design 804

I originally had a big RX580 in here on a W10 VM but have now removed it for my new Main Windows build as I have rarely used this VM.  Also removed my retail key from this VM to be used on the new build Win10PC.

 

The H97M-Plus board has 6 SATA, 5/6 is shared with an M2 port (which is only capable of SATA mode or pcie x2 (I assume 2.0 x2).

There are 2 PCI slots - one contains a satellite tuner used with DVB plug-in and a TVH docker. Works great.

There are two full size PCIe slots - 3.0/2.0 x16 and 2.0x16 (runs max x4).

I have a LSI SAS2004 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 [Spitfire] in the 2.0x4 slot, fully loaded with 4x3TB WD Red (old CMR!!!). they are mostly full now.

I have 3x8TB drives - all connected to MB SATA slots - WD Red (CMR!!!) as parity with WD Red Pro & Toshiba N300 as data. So my array has a capacity of 28TB and is now 51% full, but only about 4.5TB is across the 2x8TB drives.

I have 2x500GB SSD (inside panel) connected to the MB SATA. These are separate 'pool' drives - one is for cache/recordings, the other is for VM, System, Appdata, Docker.

 

New arrivals:

I have freed up the pcie 3.0x16 as I have a Mellanox ConnectX-3 Dual Port 10GB SFP MCX312A on the way to fit into it. I think this runs at 3.0x8. Also have a pair of Mellanox ConnectX-3 MCX311A MCX341A 10G Ethernet SFP on the way. These are used off eBay.

The intention is to have a 10GB between the two servers and then one to the main Windows PC (when built). Also on the way (from China) is a 9207-8i PCIE3.0 6Gbps HBA LSI FW:P20 IT Mode. I have a Toshiba N300 4TB also arriving sometime.

 

New Backup Server (old WinPC) :Fractal Design Define Mini

This case has 6x drive bays plus 2x 5.25" which could be used as 2x 3.5" or possibly even as 4x2.5" with adapters. So 8 devices, max maybe 10. I have an M2 500GB Samsung SATA mode in here, which uses the SATA5/6 ports - keeping that in will give me 4x usable MB ports + the 8 on the 9207.

There will also be the 10GB card.

My dilemma at this point:

I think I should actually put the 9207-8i in the main server, moving the LSI-4i to the back up. Would the Mellanox 10GB be best in the 2.0x4 slot with the 9207-8i in the 3.0x16? Or vice versa? This is one of my main queries for those with better knowledge. The LSI-4i is suited to the 2.0x4 slot.

 

I would like to know best practise for setting up the data in the new backup server.

My intention is to split the hard discs between the 2. So keeping the big 8TB together (16TB) with the 8TB parity and the 3TB plus the  new 4TB together (16TB), no parity yet on the backup server until I can afford to add another disc. As it is the back up the main one that is always running is still parity protected.

 

Most of the data is on the smaller discs. Can a pre-existing data disc be added into the array? I have a few different ideas which I am not sure will work. My initial thoughts were to move the smaller, older disks to the back up as I haven't got a parity for the small size. In which event I would move the LSI 4i there was well.

 

Small set 4x3TB - with about 10 TB data, Big set 2x8TB with around 4.5 TB data. A new 4TB to be added to the Small set after running pre-clear.

To copy data (i.e. duplicate it) I think I would have to disable parity first?

My first thought was to copy the 4.5TB to the new 4 TB. Copy the 10TB to the Big set. This will give me a duplicate of data between the two sets. Remove the Small set. Reset config on the Big set and rebuild parity. The Small set I hope could then just be added to the back up server. I assume I might have to copy the user shares config from the main server into the backup boot drive before it starts up? Can this work?

 

Alternatively I would have to keep parity running, move everything from Small set to Big set (emptying the smalls). In this case I think I can avoid parity rebuild as the small drives are empty? Remove Small set. Reset config. All small drives are now out of array. 1. So mount them as unassigned. Copy array data to these. Remove and put in new back up server?

2. Remove as empty. put in new back server and copy from main to back up via the 10GB peer-to-peer?

 

Does anyone have suggestions as to the best way to this with the minimum of fuss and time?

 

 

 

 

Well I got it sorted and running well.