Data & Drive Migration Questions

[shooga]

I am moving from an existing WHS sever with 4 drives to a new unRAID server with parity and 2 drives in the array (initially). I want to move the drives from WHS to unRAID after the data is transferred. However, I can fit all of the WHS data onto the 2 unRAID drives.

 

My question is this: Should I migrate the data, then add the old WHS drives to the array (after preclear), and then manually distribute the data amongst all 6 drives in the array using disk shares? Can I just do that from the finder on my Mac and then let the parity check do it's thing automatically? Any advice? What's the best practice here?

 

Thanks!

[dgaschk]

Move the data using teracopy. it will take several days but with the teracopy checksum and the parity drive in place you can be certain that the data is safe on the new server. Keep the original drives for a while as a backup. When you need more space then pre-clear the drives and add as needed. Keep one pre-cleared drive as a spare. Use the spare as a cache drive if desired but always having a spare will facilitate troubleshooting and make your data safer.

[Johnm]

I'll agree. if you don't need the additional space right away, I would hold on to the WHS drives for a while.

You never know what might happen. especially if unRAID is new to you.

 

As far as load balancing the drives. there is no need for that.

that many less drives spinning when you are using the array.. 

Even microsoft stopped balancing the drives in drivepooled disks on WHSv1.

 

I sort of like my initial files contiguous. After the initial copy, depending on your split settings, any additional drives will be balanced per your split settings.

 

I used to keep my data all super tidy and sorted by drive. now i just let the data go where it wants within my split settings.

 

[Frank1940]

Don't spread your data around manually.  There is no real advantage to it unless you have a drive which is filled into the high ninety percent area.  Then copy a enough files off to get it down to around 90%.  My motto has always been not to screw with something that is working unless you really want to break it. 

[shooga]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I like it when the right answer is also the easy one.