I used Unbalanced plugin to move data off 4 smaller drives in my array to larger drives.

I did new config and removed the 4 small drives from the array, keeping the rest of the drive assignments as-is.

 

Does this situation make sense for me to check the option 'parity is already valid' before starting my array again? To my understanding parity would have updated as I moved the data from the small to large drives.

The parity will not be valid unless you had zeroed the drives before removing them, so you should NOT check that option and need to build new parity based on the remaining drives.

5 hours ago, itimpi said:

The parity will not be valid unless you had zeroed the drives before removing them, so you should NOT check that option and need to build new parity based on the remaining drives.

 

@itimpi

Thanks. If I wanted to go the route mentioned in Step 4 first bullet point and clear the drive quickly by reformatting it, but I already did a new config, is this possible?

All I have done so far is new config and have not restarted the array. Can I re-add the removed drives to their original assignments, restart the array now with 'parity is already valid' option, and then follow the steps outlined in the link? Or would even this still require rebuilding the parity because I already did new config?

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by SOULV1CE

On 2/27/2025 at 12:02 PM, SOULV1CE said:

clear the drive quickly by reformatting it

Format doesn't clear the drive, it just writes a new table of contents with no entries. All the old ones and zeroes from the deleted data are still there. To remove a drive without effecting parity, you must write all zeroes to the drive, which removes any existing format as well as any traces of previous data. Writing all zeroes takes a rather long time, typically many hours. It's normally much quicker to redo parity.