Hi Unraid Community,

I have an issue where my USB drive failed a few days after I added 6 new drives to my array. I was able to spin up a new backup from Unraid Connect; however, the backup did not contain my newly added drives in the array. I am unsure of the order in which I placed them in the array and wonder if it truly matters. I'm not sure if randomly placing them back will screw up my parity drive or worse, erase the data I moved on to the drives after I installed them. The good news is that I can see them as unassigned discs and can mount them normally.

Quick Recap:

1. I added 6 new drives to array, Unraid initialized and started the array successfully.

2. I moved data onto 3 of the new drives

3. The USB failed after adding the new array, and I was not able to make a backup of the new configuration before it failed.

Before I add them back to the array, I'm reaching out to see if anyone can provide me with some advice.

Thanks

Edited August 11, 2025Aug 11 by NascarJK
I wanted to clarify that Unraid initialized and started the array

the order of the drives will not matter if you only have parity1 as long as you did not restrict shares to particular drives under your share settings.

If that is the case you can use Tools->New Config and select the option to keep current assignments and click Apply.

On returning to the Main tab add the additional drives. Click the Parity is Valid checkbox (ignore the warning about parity being overwritten as it does not take into account the checkbox) and then start the array. You should find all drives mount fine with their data intact. If you have parity2 you should not click the checkbox as its calculation uses disk number as one of its parameters so you need to rebuild parity from scratch.

I would recommend you now run a parity check to confirm parity really was valid.

Thanks for the reply. I followed your guidance as I did not have drives restricted to a specific share. However, it seems Unraid is still going through the disk clearing process after I re-added the drives and started the array. If the data is gone, it's not a total loss, as 80% of the data I moved came from an older NAS I owned. I'm glad that I held on to it.

Thanks again.

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EDIT: I think I figured out my error. When you stated to go to "Tools > New Config and select to keep", I thought I should follow that step if I had specific drives assigned to a share. Clearly, reading is fundamental😄 @itimpi Thanks again, As I mentioned above, most of the data I still have is stored on an old NAS, and I will just move the files again.

Edited August 11, 2025Aug 11 by NascarJK
updated post to show the step I missed and make it clear for other readers who may find this post beneficial.

1 hour ago, NascarJK said:

Thanks for the reply. I followed your guidance as I did not have drives restricted to a specific share. However, it seems Unraid is still going through the disk clearing process after I re-added the drives and started the array. If the data is gone, it's not a total loss, as 80% of the data I moved came from an older NAS I owned. I'm glad that I held on to it.

Thanks again.

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EDIT: I think I figured out my error. When you stated to go to "Tools > New Config and select to keep", I thought I should follow that step if I had specific drives assigned to a share. Clearly, reading is fundamental😄 @itimpi Thanks again, As I mentioned above, most of the data I still have is stored on an old NAS, and I will just move the files again.

It sounds as if you forgot to click the Apply button to actually do the New Config?

30 minutes ago, itimpi said:

It sounds as if you forgot to click the Apply button to actually do the New Config?

I wish, but in this case I completely misunderstood your instructions. If I had read it correctly, it would have solved my issue, which is why I set your comment as a resolution.

Edited August 11, 2025Aug 11 by NascarJK