I am running 7.3.2 I installed a new drive and encrypted it. I was just trying out unraids drive encryption features. I now want to remove this drive from the array. Nothing was placed on this drive.

How do I remove this drive without affecting my parity?

There are two options to shrink an array, both described here; typically, we recommend the first one (requires a parity sync/check)

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/using-unraid-to/manage-storage/array/removing-disks-from-array/#removing-data-disks

18 minutes ago, JorgeB said:

There are two options to shrink an array, both described here; typically, we recommend the first one (requires a parity sync/check)

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/using-unraid-to/manage-storage/array/removing-disks-from-array/#removing-data-disks

Thanks I dont want to do a parity sync as my drives are 20TB and it takes 24 hours. It would seem unraid should automate this if you zero a drive or have never put anything on the drive it should be easier to remove a drive without having to run parity again or go through a convoluted dance. I should be able to select a drive choose remove from array then it does what it needs to do to remove that drive. Obviously gives warning that any data would be wiped. But the process is very manual and error prone. Unraid LOVES to restart parity checks.

I tried option 2 but failed at step 1 so I assumed maybe the instructions were out of date

Start the array in maintenance mode, click on the disk you want to remove, and then click Erase. This erases the file system from the device while maintaining parity, then stop the array.
I do not see an "Erase" Feature after selecting the drive in maintenance mode.

Edited August 11Aug 11 by xokia

17 minutes ago, xokia said:

Thanks I dont want to do a parity sync as my drives are 20TB and it takes 24 hours.

The moment you format a drive (which you must have done if you were testing out encryption) the drive is no longer empty and cannot be removed without affecting parity. The fact there is no user data on the drive is irrelevant. Whatever method you now use it is going to take a long time. Doing a New Config followed by the parity sync is probably the easiest.

15 minutes ago, itimpi said:

The moment you format a drive (which you must have done if you were testing out encryption) the drive is no longer empty and cannot be removed without affecting parity. The fact there is no user data on the drive is irrelevant. Whatever method you now use it is going to take a long time. Doing a New Config followed by the parity sync is probably the easiest.

Thanks I'll schedule it to be removed the next parity check in 3 months.

If I could get passphrase + keyfile to work then I'd like to use encrypted drives. But currently they are mutually exclusive in the SW. Looks like LUKS supports it but unraid only uses a single key slot.

Edited August 11Aug 11 by xokia

Since parity should be mostly valid (assuming the disk was new/cleared), I would check "parity is already valid" after the new config and then run a correcting check, to keep the array somewhat protected, but if the disk wasn't new/cleared, it would be best to do a parity sync, since it will be faster than a check if there are many sync errors.

18 hours ago, JorgeB said:

Since parity should be mostly valid (assuming the disk was new/cleared), I would check "parity is already valid" after the new config and then run a correcting check, to keep the array somewhat protected, but if the disk wasn't new/cleared, it would be best to do a parity sync, since it will be faster than a check if there are many sync errors.

Drive was never used to store any data on it I was purely looking at the encryption features. I dont want to thrash the 100TB worth of drives for a full 24 hours just to take a drive out. Its spun down and wont get used so I'll just wait until the next scheduled parity sync in 3 months then remove it. Annoying but nothing that is a major concern. I set a reminder to notify me to remove the drive.

No data should be added to it since I dont use the drives like a normal "array" 1 large storage location. I dont like to spin up a bunch of drives just to get access to data. So I put specific data on specific drives and only the drive that is needed for the specific task gets spun up when writing/reading. So most of the time only a single drive is spun up and the rest stay spun down. Even writing back to the parity drive is a scheduled daily task so it also sits spun down.

Edited August 13Aug 13 by xokia

2 hours ago, xokia said:

Even writing back to the parity drive is a scheduled daily task so it also sits spun down.

Don't know what you mean there. Unraid parity is realtime. Any time an array data disk gets written, parity is updated.

On 8/12/2026 at 8:16 PM, trurl said:

Don't know what you mean there. Unraid parity is realtime. Any time an array data disk gets written, parity is updated.

I have a cache drive for writes the data gets written to the cache. Doesnt write back to the array until the end of the day.

Edited August 14Aug 14 by xokia