Hi everyone, hope that someone can give me some advice about my upgrade project

first of all, I have a small server an AOOSTAR 2 Bay Nas Mini PC with

• Array:

1 Seagate Ironwolf 4 TB parity disk 

1 Seagate Barracuda 4 TB data disk XFS ( almost 3 TB of data inside) 

• Cache :

2 X 500 NVME (used to be btrfs but because of some problem with the disks I had to replace them and I am planning to format them in ZFS)

• Ram:

32 GB SODIMM G.Skill

 

• The upgrade:

I am now waiting for an Aoostar WTR Pro with 4 bays to arrive

I also bought 2 extra disks to add to the array

1 Toshiba MG 20 TB ( as parity drive)

1 Toshiba N300 12 TB 

 

In the end, the configuration that I want will have an array that looks something like this

1 Toshiba MG 20 TB (parity)

1 Toshiba N300 12 TB 

1 Seagate Ironwolf 4 TB

1 Seagate Barracuda 4 TB

 

I have a few questions and doubts, this is why I ask for advice, I am not a pro (also the choice of the hardware shows)

I am planning to do the parity switcharoo from the 4TB to the 20 TB converting the 4 TB as a data disk

1. I would like to convert the array from XFS to ZFS, what is the safest way to do it? can I, for example, add to the array the new data drive (12 TB Toshiba) and format it in ZFS safely? What about the rest of the disks, how can I handle the data? should I move the data inside the new disk and then format the other disks?
2. As I said I am not a pro, and I have always thought that the parity disk should be as big as the SUM of the data disk, but as I find out, at least from some Spaceinvaderone old video, it is ok to have the parity disk as big as the bigger data disk (I promise I will try to educate myself on the parity matter, I am too busy to spend time on the theory for the moment) that said can I potentially replace the 4 tb disks with bigger ones that are smaller than the 20 TB parity disk? to have  potentially a configuration like this:

   1 Toshiba MG 20 TB (parity)

   1 Toshiba N300 12 TB 

   1 Toshiba MG 20 TB (1 Seagate Ironwolf 4 TB) 

   1 Toshiba MG 20 TB (1 Seagate Barracuda 4 TB)

3. The USB drive that contains Unraid will be placed in the new server, should I be worried about the hardware change? ( I assume I will find out, but at least I would like to hear if you have some direct experience, the two servers are based on a similar platform AMD 5000 series)

Thanks in advance for the answers, I know some of them are kinda basic.

Sorry for my bad English, it is not my primary language. 

 

 

5 hours ago, pirolisi said:

I would like to convert the array from XFS to ZFS, what is the safest way to do it? can I, for example, add to the array the new data drive (12 TB Toshiba) and format it in ZFS safely? What about the rest of the disks, how can I handle the data? should I move the data inside the new disk and then format the other disks?

You can add a new disk, then use the mover with v7 to empty a disk, then repeat, but note that currently there's a known issue with zfs write performance on the array, pools are not affected.

 

5 hours ago, pirolisi said:

that said can I potentially replace the 4 tb disks with bigger ones that are smaller than the 20 TB parity disk? to have  potentially a configuration like this:

Yes.

 

5 hours ago, pirolisi said:

The USB drive that contains Unraid will be placed in the new server, should I be worried about the hardware change?

Usually is not a problem as long as RAID controllers are not involved, also, any VMs using PCIe passthrough will likely need adjusting.

thank you