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I tried option 2 but failed at step 1 so I assumed maybe the instructions were out of date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 14 hours ago14 hr 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 13 hours ago13 hr 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.