Wondering what is best method to move (or rebuild) the data from (2) 8TB drives to (1) 18TB drive. I do not have room for anymore drives in my case and would like to add a second parity drive. Searched, but couldn;t find exact instructions. Thx

I did something similar recently by swapping one disk and rebuilding onto that, then emptying the second disk to the new disk and removing it from the array via new config, that opens up a slot to use for a new second parity.

Do you have a second 18TB disk to add as the second parity?

5 hours ago, Faceman said:

I did something similar recently by swapping one disk and rebuilding onto that, then emptying the second disk to the new disk and removing it from the array via new config, that opens up a slot to use for a new second parity.

Do you have a second 18TB disk to add as the second parity?

Thanks for reply! I am a little confused at the process you describe. I do not have a second 18TB HDD yet. Just want to consolidate (2) to (1) for now and then add second parity in next couple of months. Thx

EDIT: I guess I understand that you swapped the 18TB for the 8TB (in my case), but how did you "empty" the additional 8TB onto the new 18TB? I thought moving data (like with Krusader or other means) was frowned upon. Thx

Edited January 13Jan 13 by wdpaynter

43 minutes ago, wdpaynter said:

EDIT: I guess I understand that you swapped the 18TB for the 8TB (in my case), but how did you "empty" the additional 8TB onto the new 18TB? I thought moving data (like with Krusader or other means) was frowned upon. Thx

There is no issue moving files using Unraid built in File Manager, Midnight Commander (mc), Krusader or Unbalance (plugin). Just be sure you are moving files from drive to drive. Never move files from Share to Drive or Drive to Share. This is when problems can happen.

Is your Parity Drive 18TB or bigger? Parity Drive must be equal/greater in size to all of the data drives in your array.

41 minutes ago, ConnerVT said:

There is no issue moving files using Unraid built in File Manager, Midnight Commander (mc), Krusader or Unbalance (plugin). Just be sure you are moving files from drive to drive. Never move files from Share to Drive or Drive to Share. This is when problems can happen.

Is your Parity Drive 18TB or bigger? Parity Drive must be equal/greater in size to all of the data drives in your array.

Oh, ok. Maybe moving from/to shares was what I remember. Thanks! Most of my drives are 8TB and 18TB.

So, my plan:

• replace (1) 8TB with (1) 18TB

• move data from another (1) 8TB to the same 18TB

• Use "New Config" to "shrink" the Array

This is the best practice?

Thanks

That's the way to do it.

There is a way to empty a disk from the webUI now, but it does the move according to share settings, rather than forcing the move to one disk, but that should still work in most users cases.

Unbalance plugin does make it easy and safe too, probably the safest option if you've never done these operations manually before, but I've always just done it in MC and manually copied each share folder, one at a time, disk to disk in there (probably safest to do this in maintenance mode to ensure nothing is trying to access the files), ensure the files are good and safe, then delete the originals or just remove the disk via new-config as is when copied completely. I do always to a copy then delete rather than a move just to be safe if something goes wrong during the operation, no unraid doesn't want you to have duplicate files but it does handle them just fine and they are temporary.