I was hoping someone could offer some advice.  I have a drive that is failing, and I've gotten a replacement for it already.  What I'm trying to do is to remove the old drive, replace it with the new in the same slot and run a preclear on that drive before adding it to the array. 

 

My server is powered down right now, so would I simply install the new drive and boot up?  Would Unraid go straight into a parity check/correction, or would it boot up without starting the array?  I guess if it doesn't go straight into the parity check/correction, that I could initiate the preclear from the terminal and then simply add it through the webgui, format, start the array and let it rebuild? I just wanted to be sure before I did something stupid (not uncommon for me  ).

 

Thanks for your help.

If you remove the old drive, put in the new drive, I believe UnRaid will start up and not come "online" as it will detect the missing drive.

You can start UnRaid and it will, but you won't be protected if another drive fails.  You can access the data from the missing drive as the parity drive will create the missing drive data on the fly.

 

I would suggest that you do either:

1. Replace the failing drive, bring unraid back up and have it start rebuilding.

2. keep unraid off, put the new drive in another system and run the pre-clear script (stress testing the new drive to make sure its good), then do #1.

 

 

You can do the pre-clear in the server with the array started or not started. If another dive fails you may lose the data on both drives. The safest thing is to not start the array.