Good morning,

I am preparing to upgrade the drives in my server and feel like I might need some handholding or step-by-steps to make sure I don't screw anything up.

I currently have:

- 16TB x2 for dual parity

- 8TB x7 and 14TB x6 for data

I have 20TB x4 that have been precleared. I have also already scattered all the data off of the 8TB x7 drives so they are empty and they have been removed from the drive assignments in the share definitions.

My end goal is to have:

- 20TB x2 for dual parity

- 20TB x2, 16TBx2, and 14TB x6 for data

If possible, I wanted to do this with one total power shutdown (heavy rig to move!), and with the fewest restarts/parity recalculations as possible.

I was thinking I would do the following steps:

- Stop array

- New config that removes 8TB x7 drives (preserve 14TB x6 assignments)

- Stop/abort parity calculation

- Power down

- Remove 8TB x7 drives

- Install 20TB x4 drives

- Power up

- New config to remove 16TB x2 drives and replace with 20TB x2 for dual parity (leave out 20TB x2 and 16TB x2 for now, preserve 14TB x6 assignments)

- Perform parity recalculation to completion

- Preclear 16TB x2 drives (former parity)

- New config to add precleared 20TB x2 and 16TB x2 to the data drives (skip parity recalculation, should be valid?)

- Change shares back to use all data drives

- Done?

Please weigh in and let me know if this works, or if I have anything missing! It just feels like I'm about to do something wrong...

TIA!

Since your steps invalidate parity anyway, then you seem to have some unneeded steps and quickest would be to

• stop server,

• remove old drives

• put in new drives

• Start server

• Use Tools->New Config - probably easiest at this point to select the Keep All Assignments option

• Assign drives as you want them to end up (both parity and data drives) and remove drives no longer present

• Start server to build parity based on the new drive set.

Wow, that does indeed make it much simpler!

Maybe I was over-thinking and made it too complicated in my head...

Thank you!