Hello all, 

 

first off, my apologies if this topic has been discussed ad nauseam elsewhere here; if something close to what I'm in need of help with has been discussed, please help point me to the right direction.

 

It's been quite sometime since I last had to dabble with my unraid server, which I guess is a good sign regarding the reliability and stability of Unraid. As such, my knowledge on how to manuever around Unraid is somewhat rusty right now. 

This year, it seems the storms have gotten quite a bit stronger and more often in my area, and as a result, we tend to lose power more often than we're used to. I have a battery backup for the server, but the power outage almost always outlasts the battery itself. Part of the problem with my setup is that I have two Pool devices that are situated outside of the server itself, in an external drive enclosure. While this enclosure is also connected to the battery backup, when it runs out of juice, the external drive enclosure will not power up by itself when the power is restored, whereas the server will do so. This results in the array not being able to start by itself due to missing devices. 

 

And so, my question is: What would be the best way for me to migrate these external pool devices internally into the server itself, so everything can start back up the moment power is restored? I need to double check my connections inside the server, but I'm forseeing two options -

 

1. Move those existing external 2.5" SSDs into the server and connect them as is if I have available SATA ports and power cables ....or.....

2. Completely copy the content of those two external drives to two different internal drives, maybe m.2 SSDs 

 

I'm leaning more towards the first option, since I'm assuming this will be just plug and play. But I also think it won't be that simple, because the hardware ID for these external pool devices will be different once I remove those drives from the enclosure. Currently, IDs show the controller of the external enclosure, and when I remove the drives and connect them internally, the IDs would switch to that of the drives themselves, if I'm not mistaken. 

 

Any recommendations on what I should do? And if I should include diagnostic file for this question, please let me know and I'll include one. Thank you.

If the enclosure only changes the IDs, you can re-import the pool using SATA.

Hi @JorgeB, thank you very much for your guidance. Let me give it a try and hopefully it's pretty straightforward without any surprises.

Hi @JorgeB, good day to you I finally had a chance to move my external 2.5" SSDs internally into my Unraid server. As expected, the device IDs on these pools are now "wrong" and I can't proceed to enabling the array. 

 

You mentioned that I can re-import the pool, but I'm not sure how I should go about doing that. My apologies if this is a very straightforward process. I'm just worried of doing the wrong steps and making a bigger mess. 

 

Just as a refresher, I am not swapping the drives for those pools with new drives, just moving those same drives from an external enclosure into the server and connecting them directly via sata ports. My only real concern is messing around with the pool and having to reconfigure my docker apps so they all work again normally. 

 

Please let me know how I should proceed from here. Thank you very much for all your help. 

 

To re-import a pool you can do this:

 

unassign the pool device(s)

start array

stop array

re-assign the pool devices(s)

 

That should re-import any existing pool.

9 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

To re-import a pool you can do this:

 

unassign the pool device(s)

start array

stop array

re-assign the pool devices(s)

 

That should re-import any existing pool.

@JorgeB, wonderful! Thank you so much for the guidance, everything is working perfectly normal now!