Okay...I'm not sure how to approach this...I wish to remove 10 of the 20 1TB drives from my system completely. I wish to consolidate the files from those 10 drives onto my other 10 drives still remaining. There is enough space currently for this, but right now the data is spanned across all 20 drives.

 

I would love to hear suggestions on the best way to do this?

 

Also, for future reference is there a way to have unraid save files one disc at a time until each disc is full; rather than spanning it across multiple drives?

 

Thanks...

Manually moving it is your only real option. You have to browse to each individual disk and copy the files manually from one disk to another.

Use the fill-up allocation method.

Okay...I'm not sure how to approach this...I wish to remove 10 of the 20 1TB drives from my system completely. I wish to consolidate the files from those 10 drives onto my other 10 drives still remaining. There is enough space currently for this, but right now the data is spanned across all 20 drives.

 

I would love to hear suggestions on the best way to do this?

 

There's no way that doesn't involve copying the data.    The easiest approach would be something like this:

 

(a)  Run a parity check to be sure everything's "good" to start with.

 

(b)  Get a new high-capacity drive (3TB or 4TB);  attach it to another system; and then copy all the data from some drives you want to remove to that drive (or you could get a couple of the high-capacity drives and copy even more data).  From what you've outlined, a couple of high capacity drives would probably be enough that you could empty 10 of your 1TB drives (since they're not full).

 

©  Now you're going to be "at risk" for a day or two ==>  Do a New Config on your UnRAID server and only assign the 10 drives that still have data on them to the array.    This effectively removes the 10 drives you no longer want to use.  Note that this would be a good time to change your parity drive for a new, high-capacity (4TB) unit, since at this stage you've got to recomputed parity anyway.  Then let the server rebuild parity.    When it's done, do a parity check to confirm the parity was written correctly.  THEN copy the data back from the drives you saved it on in step (b).    Alternative:  You could copy the data back BEFORE you assign a parity drive to the new configuration and it would copy much faster.  Since nothing's parity protected at this stage anyway, that's probably not a bad idea.

 

Note:  If you don't have enough space on the high-capacity drives to "empty" all 10 of the drives you want to remove; just do (b) in stages ... empty as many drives as you can;  then copy the data back to some of the drives you're going to keep;  then repeat the process.

 

 

Also, for future reference is there a way to have unraid save files one disc at a time until each disc is full; rather than spanning it across multiple drives?

 

On the Shares page, click on your share name, and use the "Fill-Up" allocation method.  That will then fill a disk before the share starts using another drive.

 

 

On the Shares page, click on your share name, and use the "Fill-Up" allocation method.  That will then fill a disk before the share starts using another drive.

Would this be the best method for anyone?

 

On the Shares page, click on your share name, and use the "Fill-Up" allocation method.  That will then fill a disk before the share starts using another drive.

Would this be the best method for anyone?

 

It's largely a personal preference ... do you want to fill up one drive before you use another -- or do you want to fill up half of one; then half of the next; then half of the next; etc. .... and then the next quarter or each; then the next eigth; etc.      There are pros and cons to all three allocation schemes [high-water, most-free, and fill-up].    I won't expound on those, but suffice it to say that if you want the maximum distribution of your data (i.e. use all drives fairly uniformly) use "most free";  if you want to fill each drive before moving on to the next use "fill-up";  and if you don't want to switch drives too frequently, but do want the data distributed before a drive fills up, use "high water".

 

The performance of the array will be essentially the same, with variations in the pattern of when it gets slower because of the inner cylinder accesses.

 

If I just fill each disk by copying contents from one drive to another (inside of unraid), can I basically then remove the drives from unraid of which I have already copied their data onto other unraid drives? So lets say that my copying allows me to now remove 10 drives

 

After doing this copy process, can I remove the 10 drives from the unraid and then do a rebuild of some sort?

 

Please highlight how this process would be best performed using my method. I am not concerned with the data that has been copied still existing on the drives to be removed, as I will format them later.

 

What should I do before I remove the physical drives, and what should I do after etc...

 

 

If I just fill each disk by copying contents from one drive to another (inside of unraid), can I basically then remove the drives from unraid of which I have already copied their data onto other unraid drives? So lets say that my copying allows me to now remove 10 drives

 

After doing this copy process, can I remove the 10 drives from the unraid and then do a rebuild of some sort?

 

Please highlight how this process would be best performed using my method. I am not concerned with the data that has been copied still existing on the drives to be removed, as I will format them later.

 

What should I do before I remove the physical drives, and what should I do after etc...

 

The simplest approach to removing a bunch of drives is to just do a "New Config" ==>  what that DOES do is put you "at risk" while you rebuild parity with the new configuration ... so for several hours if a drive were to fail, you couldn't rebuild it.

 

In simple terms ...

 

Before you remove the physical drives:  Be sure you have all the data copied off of them to a "safe" place.

 

After you've removed all the drives you want to remove:  Boot to UnRAID; do a "New Config"; and assign the data drives you want to keep and the drive you want used for parity.    Since this is going to rebuild parity at this state, it's a good time to add a new, larger parity drive so you'll be able to later replace your 1TB drives with larger drives 

Now that the devices page is no longer there in 5.0, is there any other drive data (in order to keep everything in logical order) other than a copy of the unraid device status page as far as drive serial #'s etc?

Now that the devices page is no longer there in 5.0, is there any other drive data (in order to keep everything in logical order) other than a copy of the unraid device status page as far as drive serial #'s etc?

 

When you stop the array the Main page shows all the devices.  But v5 also keeps track, so you don't have to worry about it EXCEPT when you're going to do a new config (as you are) ==> so be SURE you know which drive is parity, and which is your cache (if you have one).    Otherwise you can simply assign the data drives in any order.

 

I'm having a problem...

 

I removed 10 of my 20 drives from my system after verifying parity, but now when I reboot the system it says operating system not found.

 

When I go into the bios, the usb flash key is still set as the boot disk priority #1...What might I be forgetting here?

Isn't there a way to remove a data drive (after copying all data from it) and keep the parity valid? I think I read somewhere on the forum once that it was possible...

 

Isn't there a way to remove a data drive (after copying all data from it) and keep the parity valid? I think I read somewhere on the forum once that it was possible...

Yes, you can write zeros to the entire drive that you are removing, then tell the system to trust parity. Problem is, it involves running commands that can potentially blow away data if you enter something incorrectly. Statistically it's probably safer to just copy (not move) the data, remove the drives, and recalc parity. If you have a drive failure on one of the remaining drives, you still have the old drive with data on it that you copied, so you probably won't lose everything.

 

If you really want to, you could physically remove one drive at a time and never have to rebuild parity, but you would be running at risk for much longer. I've personally done this when I wanted to remove a failed drive permanently, and keep the data. It worked like this.

 

Drive red balled, I physically removed it.

Copied the data from the parity created virtual drive to one of the other drives.

Wrote zeroes to the virtual drive.

Unassigned the slot and told unraid to trust parity for the remaining drives.

Checked parity, zero errors.

 

 

I'm having a problem...

 

I removed 10 of my 20 drives from my system after verifying parity, but now when I reboot the system it says operating system not found.

 

When I go into the bios, the usb flash key is still set as the boot disk priority #1...What might I be forgetting here?

Guaranteed the solution is in the boot order. I'd do this.

 

Power down, remove usb key.

Power up, go into bios, check boot order, make sure usb is gone from the list, save cmos settings.

Power down, insert usb key.

Power up, go into bios, check boot order, make sure usb stick is listed as first in boot order, may have to change settings in 2 places, one in type of device to boot first, one in list of devices of that type. Save cmos settings and restart.

Here's what fixed it for me. I unplugged the usb stick from the usb port on my motherboard and then plugged it into an external usb port and then it worked. Now I wonder if it's your logic that fixed it or if it's a bad usb port on my motherboard?

Here's what fixed it for me. I unplugged the usb stick from the usb port on my motherboard and then plugged it into an external usb port and then it worked. Now I wonder if it's your logic that fixed it or if it's a bad usb port on my motherboard?

 

When you removed all the drives, the BIOS simply got "confused" and clearly was not attempting to boot from your USB key.    Guarantee you COULD have resolved it by simply changing the boot order in the BIOS .. but since moving the key already resolved it, I'd just leave well-enough alone.