unRAID v4.7

 

I have a total of 4 drives in unRAID shared out as follows:

 

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Photos

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Music

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | Backups

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | temp & torrents

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 1 | min free space 655360 | Video

 

1 x 2TB parity

 

The 2TB are WD EARS,

 

This has been working fine, and initially I felt more comfortable storing certain data types on separate drives.

 

Currently my 2TB video drive is reaching 75% capacity and I looking at adding another 2TB drive (been waiting for the prices to drop!).

 

My questions are as follwos.

 

1)  Can I share the additional drive as single share? So a mapped drive to "Video" sees the 2 drives as a single disk?

2)  If I do the above (1) will it potentially mess any up I already have?

3)  Do I just added the disk and use "Include disk 3" in the share settings and off I go?

 

 

Yes, just add the disk and include disk 3 disk 4 (which the new disk should appear as) in your current Video share.

Thanks, just how I like it...nice and easy! 

Updated my answer, it'd be disk 4 as I *think* from what you posted, you currently have disk 1 to 3 already.

I think I confused you there, having looked at what I posted.

 

I'm only interested in extenting the "Video" share which currently sits on1 x 2TB drive:

 

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 1 | min free space 655360 | Video

 

 

I gather that I just add an extra 2TB drives to "Include disk 4"? (previously I stated disk 3)

 

So I will have this:

 

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 1 | min free space 655360 | Video

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 4 | min free space 655360 | Video

 

 

Change of plan, but still want to do the same.

 

I'm going to swap out the 2 x 640GB and replace it with a single 1 x 2TB.

 

I will install the new 2TD drive, and want to copy over the data from the existing 2 x 640GB to the 2TD drive, what is the best way of copying the data whilst keeping the parity info correct?

 

If I do a direct copy (from the /mnt/diskxxx) will it screw up the parity?

Unraid isn't really equipped to reduce the number of slots in use while keeping parity intact, only increasing the drive count is easily supported. The easiest way to partially accomplish your goal is to upgrade one of the 640 drives with the 2TB, and leave the other 640 in place until you can afford a second 2TB drive to replace it.

 

If you must remove both 640s, you could copy all the data off of the remaining 640 to the free space on the rest of the array, then once you have confirmed a good copy, remove the drive and rebuild parity without it.

 

Copying data either in the /mnt/user or /mnt/disk structure will work fine with parity, the only way I know of to access your data and mess up parity is by operating on the /dev/sd?1 structures directly. If you are running any version 5 of unraid you will probably need to rerun the permissions fix after you are done moving the data around from the console or telnet command line.

Thanks for the reply, got behind on things and have only just got back around to looking at this.

 

Last week, I got a good deal on WD20EARX, so I bought 2 off them at $99 each inc shipping. I haven't decided if I'm going to add 1 or both of them yet, probably going to start with a single one.

 

Its been awhile since I've added drives, and some issue with the WD AF drives is the past, so have a few questions.

 

1)  Is there a new pre-clear script a now? (2009 or 2010 when I used it last) Any new commands for AF?

2)  Can I run pre-clear while actively using unRAID?

3)  Can I mix the AF 4k drives with my existing drives? i.e., I assume I do not have to touch the existing one, just add the new 2TB, align to 4K (unjumperd), leave the others alone.

Ok, think I've got this down.

 

1)  Is there a new pre-clear script a now? (2009 or 2010 when I used it last) Any new commands for AF?

 

Yes there was, I downloaded v1.13

 

2)  Can I run pre-clear while actively using unRAID?

 

Not a far as I can see - I'm using another server running free version of unRAID, v4.7 stable

 

3)  Can I mix the AF 4k drives with my existing drives? i.e., I assume I do not have to touch the existing one, just add the new 2TB, align to 4K (unjumperd), leave the others alone.

 

AFAIK - yes.

 

I'm pre-clearing the WD20EARX now, I used ./preclear_disk.sh -A /dev/sdb - I had another disk attached

 

It will take awhile, and be slower than usual as I'm using an external USB SATA docking station (not an external hard drive enclosure as such).

 

Hoping I have done this correctly.

2)  Can I run pre-clear while actively using unRAID?

 

Not a far as I can see - I'm using another server running free version of unRAID, v4.7 stable

 

I do this. Why not?

I do not know why not, so being cautious, I used another server.

Iv'e never had a problem running pre-clear on an active server.

Have one final question.

 

Are pre-cleared drives node/machine locked in any way?

 

The drive I'm currently pre-clearing will end up in another unRAID machine.

 

 

Are pre-cleared drives node/machine locked in any way?

 

The drive I'm currently pre-clearing will end up in another unRAID machine.

That will work fine. The preclear signature is drive geometry dependent, so it will work as long as the target machine doesn't do something brain dead, like add hpa to the drive.

Thanks for the - I'm nearly good to go now.

 

I used a separate machine for the pre-clear as I thought I may have performance issues running pre-clear on the same box that unRAID streams HD content daily, my unRAID server is pretty basic, no add-in cards/HBA etc, it has been incredibly reliable over the time I have been using it (2 years I think).

Are you swapping out the old drives now or adding the drive as a new disk?

 

If you're swapping then don't add the drive as new, just swap out the old disk and let unRAID rebuild.

 

FYI, the setting in the share would be "disk1,disk4" for the included disks. Don't go trying to create a duplicate share for the new disk or something like that.

The drive pre-cleared fine.

 

I'm going to add the 2TB drive, and leave the other as they are, so drive coming out.

 

I currently have:

 

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Photos

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Music

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | Backups

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | temp & torrents

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 1 | min free space 655360 | Video

 

I will add the new 2TB, which I want to be only used for the "Video" share, so I will have this...I think:

 

The drive pre-cleared fine.

 

I'm going to add the 2TB drive, and leave the other as they are, so drive coming out.

 

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Photos

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 2 | min free space 131072 | Music

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | Backups

1 x 640GB - high water | include disk 3 | min free space 131072 | temp & torrents

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 1 | min free space 655360 | Video

1 x 2TB - high water | include disk 4 | min free space 655360 | Video  <=== this being the new disk

 

BTW - it took 96 hours to pre_clear using the USB docking station...I'm am aware this is not the most efficient way, but I'm in no rush. 

Think I'm done now.

 

Added the new disk (disk4) to my Video share as follows:

 

Under the Video share I changed the line Included disk from disk1 to disk1,disk4, am I correct in thinking that with my configuration, once disk 1 fills up it will roll -over to disk4?

 

The first 2TB disk attached via USB2 docking station took ~96 hrs, max I got was 37MB/s, low 17MB/s

The second 2TB disk connected to internal SATA2 port, ~26 hrs, max I got was 107MB/s for around 50%, and then it dipped to 85MB/s.

 

 

 

am I correct in thinking that with my configuration, once disk 1 fills up it will roll -over to disk4?

 

You have your settings for high-water.

 

Here is a link explaining high water with a nice picture: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Un-Official_UnRAID_Manual#High_Water

 

The high water allocation method attempts to step fill each disk so at the end of each step there is an equal free space left on each disk. The idea is to progressively fill each disk but not constantly go back and forth between disks each time new data is written to the array.

 

If you want one disk to fill completely before moving to the next, use Fill-Up. This is explained on the same page below the explanation of high water.

Thanks for the info - I've now set it at "Fill-up" which is the scheme I want.

Personally, I wouldn't use fill-up. You can end up with disk full errors if you're adding files that can't split due to the split level.

 

If you must, then make sure you set a decent min-free space so the disk doesn't end up completely full.

HD streams take no power at all since its usually 1-2MB/sec.

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Configuration_Tutorial#Preclear_Hard_Drives