Hi everyone,

I’m planning to reorganize my NAS setup and would like to reduce the number of drives in my Unraid server. I’d appreciate some advice on the best way to do this.

Current setup

• Unraid version: 6.9.2

• Array: 7 × 8TB HDDs total

  • 1 parity disk

  • 6 data disks

• Total data currently stored: ~4.5 TB (cleaned up a lot :D)

• Cache: NVMe drive

• Running services:

  • 1 VM

  • 3 Docker containers

• appdata, domains, and system are on the cache drive

Goal

I want to reduce the array to:

• 1 × 8TB parity

• 2 × 8TB data disks

The remaining drives will be removed and reused in another system.

Preparation already done

• I created a full backup of all data to another NAS.

• The data footprint is relatively small (~4.5 TB), so it fits easily on two 8TB drives.

Requirements

• The VM and Docker containers should continue running after the change.

• Ideally I would like the simplest and safest approach to shrink the array.

• Since the data is already backed up, I’m open to rebuilding the array if that’s the recommended path.

Questions

1. What is the recommended method to reduce the array from 6 data disks to 2 data disks?

2. Would it be best to:

   • move the data to two disks first and then use New Config, or

   • completely rebuild the array with the smaller configuration and restore the data from backup?

3. Are there any precautions regarding the cache drive (appdata, domains, system) when performing this change?

Any advice or recommended workflow would be greatly appreciated. I took already a look to the shrink video, but not sure, if thats we way to go in my setting, because i not only want to shrink by 1 hdd...

Thanks in advance!

Edited March 14Mar 14 by lmeier

2 hours ago, lmeier said:

move the data to two disks first and then use New Config,

I would do this, safer since you have the data in both places.