September 19, 200817 yr Does replace mean the same as reassign? I have installed a new 750G drive in my Unraid server. I have powered up the system and stopped it - the new drive is available but unassigned. The new drive is bigger than the 2 - 500G drives that are currently in the server. Do I simply have to unassign the current parity drive and assign the new drive as the parity drive? To my technical mind, when the manual says replace, I assume that to mean that the piece should be physically replaced. However, logic suggests that this may not be the case after looking at the devices page. Consequently, if it is only a matter of reassignment, starting the array will build the system with the new 750G drive as parity - is this correct? And then I assign the other drive as a data drive? One other caveat I would like to mention. The new drive is on it's own drive controller - it is a SATA drive, not IDE like the other two. Will this be a problem? Thanks much, Mark Springer industrial arts
September 19, 200817 yr You can replace by physically removing the current drive from it's slot and placing the larger drive in it's physical location or you can reassign by installing the new drive to a new slot and setting the device to the new slot. Both will work. When I want to upgrade a drive, I usually do the "reassign" thing if possible. Then I have the old drive still in the system should anything go wrong. Putting the parity on a SATA channel is a good thing. They are generally slightly faster and function best at maximum speed when used as a parity drive.
September 19, 200817 yr Author I'm still unsure. Maybe it's just my lack of server knowledge. And I'd rather make sure than have to go thru all the data woes I went thru to set it up. What do you mean by "slot"? - do you mean the IDE or SATA port on the controller card? By installing a new SATA controller card and attaching the disk have I installed it in a new slot? If I understand what you are telling me, the quick answer to my question is yes. And if so, should I get the parity drive working before I reassign the old parity drive as a data drive? One final caveat - I am still running UnRaid version 4.0. It was a huge hassle to get the flash drive to work and I'm not too tempted to experiment since things have been running so well. It has to do with the motherboard/ BIOS not easily booting from a USB drive. I searched the forum for info on how to upgrade but haven't found instructions yet. I would like to update if it is just a matter of overwriting some files on the flash. Thanks again Mark Springer industrial arts
September 19, 200817 yr >> What do you mean by "slot"? Slot is an entry in the DEVICES page. Consider Slot in the unRAID devices page a virtual designation. Not hardware slots as in PCI/PCIe etc, etc. I.E. Parity Deviice: (A slot) Disk1 Device: (A slot) Disk2 Device: (A slot) > If I understand what you are telling me, the quick answer to my question is yes. > And if so, should I get the parity drive working before I reassign the old parity drive as a data drive? That is what I would recommend. Stop the array. Do a parity check FIRST. When complete Power down. Install the parity drive in a new connection on the motherboard. When complete boot up. unassign the parity device. then assign the parity device to the new drive. This will build a new parity drive. When complete you can do a check parity if you want. Then you can assign the old parity drive to a new Disk? Device: You will then need to rebuild parity once more. You can possibly save a step here by unassigning the parity drive. Assigning the parity drive to the newly installed drive. Assigning the old parity drive to a Disk: Device slot. I've never done it this way, so I don't know if it is possible or recommended. Someone else may chime in with recommendations to diminish the time frame. >> I searched the forum for info on how to upgrade but haven't found instructions yet. See these threads. http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2072.0 http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2235.0 What I usually do is rename bzroot to bzroot-version (such as bzroot-4.0, bzimage-4.0). Then unzip unraid433.zip putting bzroot and bzimage onto the flash drive. Thereafter I duplicate lines in the syslinux.cfg file and add a section to boot the old files just in case. i.e. duplicating ... label unRAID OS^M menu default^M kernel bzimage^M append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10^M adding the following where version equals the copied/saved version for emergency fallback. label unRAID OS^M menu default^M kernel bzimage-version^M append initrd=bzroot-version rootdelay=10^M
September 19, 200817 yr Author Thanks - I think I have it now. After poking around the forums, the general idea seems to be one step at a time. So I will unsassign the old drive, assign the new drive as parity, restart the array and then reassign the old drive. I am checking parity now and I did upgrade to 4.3. Thanks once again for your help. Mark Springer industrial arts
September 19, 200817 yr You're welcome ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WeeboTech Friendly Neighborhood unRAID Tech.
September 19, 200817 yr Author Sorry - not done yet. I have searched the forums for the answer to this question and could not find a direct response. After un-assigning the old parity drive and assigning the new drive, I now have a blue light that says "Stopped. Upgrading parity." I have not seen this referred to in any post I searched. (parity blue light, Stopped. Upgrading parity., blue light , blue are the search terms I used and searched all forums.) All the posts are kind of vague and none say exactly what the blue light means, but I can see that it has something to do with the disk. The manual says it is a disk not part of the array. So.... I am assuming this is OK? But what happens next and for how long? The parity check took about two hours, so do I assume that the upgrade will take as long - or even longer, because of the larger parity drive? There is a refresh button that has no effect at this point. Or is there something else that I have to do now? I don't know who to direct this comment to, but the basic documentation is really weak. I have seen some people make comments in the forums on how the documentation needs to be clearer. I think most problems that people have could be avoided if there were explicit step by step directions for these procedures. I create technical documents for a living and have learned that you need to be incredibly specific when giving directions. Who should I direct comments about the documentation to? Thanks again for your time and help, Mark Springer industrial arts
September 19, 200817 yr Sorry - not done yet. I have searched the forums for the answer to this question and could not find a direct response. After un-assigning the old parity drive and assigning the new drive, I now have a blue light that says "Stopped. Upgrading parity." I have not seen this referred to in any post I searched. (parity blue light, Stopped. Upgrading parity., blue light , blue are the search terms I used and searched all forums.) All the posts are kind of vague and none say exactly what the blue light means, but I can see that it has something to do with the disk. The manual says it is a disk not part of the array. So.... I am assuming this is OK? But what happens next and for how long? The parity check took about two hours, so do I assume that the upgrade will take as long - or even longer, because of the larger parity drive? There is a refresh button that has no effect at this point. Or is there something else that I have to do now? I have not done this process, so I cannot give you step by step instructions. If the title says upgrading parity, I would assume it's moving parity to the new drive to keep you fully protected. I would wait it out, It should take at least as long as the parity check, Plus as long as the new drive is > then the old drive (so it zero's out the rest of the unused portion). Someone else may chime in with specifics. I create technical documents for a living and have learned that you need to be incredibly specific when giving directions. Who should I direct comments about the documentation to? Direct it to Tom if you have enhancements. Sounds like you would be a good fit for helping out with the documentation. There is also a wiki and if you have improvements, suggest them here (in a new thread) and to Tom or write articles and update the wiki. http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Wiki
September 19, 200817 yr Sorry - not done yet. I have searched the forums for the answer to this question and could not find a direct response. After un-assigning the old parity drive and assigning the new drive, I now have a blue light that says "Stopped. Upgrading parity." I have not seen this referred to in any post I searched. (parity blue light, Stopped. Upgrading parity., blue light , blue are the search terms I used and searched all forums.) All the posts are kind of vague and none say exactly what the blue light means, but I can see that it has something to do with the disk. The manual says it is a disk not part of the array. So.... I am assuming this is OK? But what happens next and for how long? The parity check took about two hours, so do I assume that the upgrade will take as long - or even longer, because of the larger parity drive? There is a refresh button that has no effect at this point. Or is there something else that I have to do now? I don't know who to direct this comment to, but the basic documentation is really weak. I have seen some people make comments in the forums on how the documentation needs to be clearer. I think most problems that people have could be avoided if there were explicit step by step directions for these procedures. I create technical documents for a living and have learned that you need to be incredibly specific when giving directions. Who should I direct comments about the documentation to? Thanks again for your time and help, Mark Springer industrial arts I think at this point it is waiting for you to press the "Start" button. (There may be an "Im'sure" button below it to enable it.) We know the documents on the official site are not as detailed as many would like, but did you check out the wiki? It is specifically this reason it was created. Part is "Official Documentation" The other is "User-Contributed" It is usually more comprehensive and detailed. This entry, specifically deals with upgrading a parity drive and is illustrated as you desire : http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2280.msg17513#msg17513 You are, I think, at "Step 8" where it is waiting for you to check the checkbox and press "Start". Once you press start, the indicator will change to orange and parity will be built on the array. At that point, you may press "refresh" from time-to-time to follow its progress. It was indexed in the wiki in the "Best Of The Forum section: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Best_of_the_Forums It shows the "Blue" indicator, and has instructions on how to proceed... step by step. Best of all, you are invited to assist in making the instructions even better for the next person who follows. With your experience in writing documentation for non-technical users, you might have a lot to offer. All you need to is "register" in the wiki section, and you can add notes and tips from your own experience. Hope this helps. Joe L.
September 19, 200817 yr I am assuming this is OK? But what happens next and for how long? The parity check took about two hours, so do I assume that the upgrade will take as long - or even longer, because of the larger parity drive? There is a refresh button that has no effect at this point. Or is there something else that I have to do now? Once you check the checkbox below the "Start" button, and then press it, it will take about the same time as the parity check to write to a replacement parity drive. (perhaps a bit longer, since writing to the parity drive may be a bit slower than reading from it) During this time the indicator adjacent to the parity drive will be orange. You can use the array, and even write to it, but performance will not be as good as when it is not busy reading every block on every data disk and writing every block on the parity drive. Joe L.
September 19, 200817 yr Author Start is greyed out and not available to me. Only: refresh, spin up, spin down, reboot and power down. Is it possible that the drive is formatting? What next? I will check out the Wiki. PS: saw your follow up posts. I will give at least as long - probably longer - than the parity check took and see what happens. As soon as I get my server in order, I will see if I can assist with the Wiki. PSS the check box under the "Start" was not greyed out as I though. The start button is now available. I will let you know what happens and then see if I can add to the Wiki. Thanks again, Mark Springer
October 11, 200817 yr Author Sorry for the delay - just wanted to let you know that after my last post things went well and fairly easy. Even the upgrade was easy. Thanks again for your help. Mark Springer industrial arts
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