[Solved} Formatting spare drives


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I am waiting for the arrival of my raid card to add additional drives.  I currently have 5 drives filling my MB to 98%.  I have numerous drives waiting to be installed when my card arrives.  Can I temporarily remove one drive and replace it with a new drive, formatted it, and then remove the new formatted drive and replace the full drive back?  Can I then install the now formatted drive into my raid configuration when it arrives?

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Are you planning to use hardware RAID with unRAID? I'm not sure I follow the question.

 

If you are asking about clearing drives to be installed in an unRAID sever, then you can always use the preclear script which will not only test the drive, but also reduce the time it takes for the format process to complete (a couple of minutes for a pre cleared drive compared to hours for one that is not) once you add the drives to your array. See the wiki for an explanation on preclearing your drives.

 

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Do you mean a preconfigured flash drive with unRAID?

 

If that's the case, then you should be able to preclear any drives that you want to add once you get your new key. You just won't be able to add them to your array until you get the new license. Although, I'm not sure why you would get a preconfigured flash since you would already have a flash with your current configuration on it.

 

I think I'm still confused about what you're trying to do.

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Short answer, no, unless you have a way of adding a spare SATA port before your multi port card arrives.

 

Long answer, yes, you can remove drives, connect blank drives, preclear them, all with the hardware you have. HOWEVER, you can't start the array and access your data while this is going on.

 

Longer answer... you MAY be able to remove one drive, and start the array degraded and use that slot to preclear a drive, but you run a high risk of messing something up and losing data.

 

If you have another pc with sata and usb, and a spare usb stick, why not do a temporary free install with the unraid trial version and preclear, and exercise the drives there?

 

I don't think the reward of getting a drive precleared sooner is worth the risk of jeopardizing a running server.

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