[Solved]New 3TB parity drive preclear/install while migrating from 4.7 to 5.0

[betaman]

I picked up some 3TB drives for my array but I'm still running 4.7 Final as I haven't had any need to upgrade to 5.0 until now.  I went ahead and installed one of the drives into my server and to my surprise, it's showing as a 3TB drive outside of the array currently.  My question is what's the best procedure for upgrading my array to 5.0 and upgrading the parity drive from a 2TB to a 3TB drive?  Should I upgrade UnRAID to 5.0 and get my array up and running with my 2TB parity drive and then preclear my new 3TB drive under 5.0 and install?  Is it even possible to preclear the drive correctly under 4.7 Final (i.e. have it clear as a 3TB drive but not add it to the array) and if so, is there any advantage to doing it this way?

 

Just looking for some guidance on the best order of operations going forward?!  Also, is this:

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Migrating_from_unRAID_4.7_to_unRAID_5.0

 

the latest info to read on migrating from 4.7 to 5.0?  I'm sure if there is a way to screw this up that hasn't been found yet then I'm your man! 

 

EDIT:  Well, I just saw where 5.0.1 is almost ready for release and that 6.0 beta is on its way.  With my server profile in my sig, is there any reason I should wait for 6.0 to do this upgrade besides the fact that I'll probably pickup a couple 4TB drives on BF that will render the effort of swapping the 2TB parity for the 3TB parity nothing more than a practice run!

[BobPhoenix]

I would upgrade to 5.0 first since you CAN'T install a 3TB drive on 4.7 make sure all is working then put your 3TB drives into 5.0.

 

Based on past performance a GOOD release of 6.0 could take quite a while (5.0 was a 3 year wait).  But it could also be a few weeks.  Which is why I say upgrade NOW and if 6.0 comes out two weeks from now upgrade then or take your time and upgrade when you want to - when it is stable.

[betaman]

Thanks for the info.  I sort of figured that was probably the best plan but appreciate the confirmation.  I haven't been as diligent on the forum as of late os is there any "surprises" that I should concern myself with on the upgrade from 4.7 to 5.0?  Is the wiki I linked to the most up to date info?  Thanks again.

[BobPhoenix]

Thanks for the info.  I sort of figured that was probably the best plan but appreciate the confirmation.  I haven't been as diligent on the forum as of late os is there any "surprises" that I should concern myself with on the upgrade from 4.7 to 5.0?  Is the wiki I linked to the most up to date info?  Thanks again.

Tom included some very detailed instructions on upgrading you should probably be fine just following them - they should be on the link for the download I would expect otherwise the info from the last RC should work too.  I upgraded some time ago when 5.0 was still in Beta before the RCs were started.  I don't remember any "surprises" although I did skip some of the betas and RCs.  I have all 5.0 installs but most of mine are still on the last RC (16c) because I just haven't gotten around to installing 5.0-i386 on them yet.  I did install 5.0-i386 on my N54L but I was essentially starting from scratch.  I deleted everything then extracted the files and ran makebootable.bat and copied back my ".key" file to the new config directory.  Then setup my new array on it since all drives were empty.

[betaman]

Ok, I've upgraded to 5.0 without any issue.  I read the entire release thread and so I'm not certain where exactly to go from here?!  I was running the following add-on's in my 4.7 Final build:

 

UnMenu:  Totally confused with the current state of plugins in v5 if I should install this or not?

 

Within unMenu, I think these are the packages I have "auto_install" files for in my 4.7 packages folder:

 

airVideoServerLinux.jar

jre-6u11-i586-1

unraid-status-email

ssmtp_2.64.orig.tar.bz2

apcupsd3.14.3-i486-1kjz.tgz

powerdown-1.02-noarch-UnRAID.tgz

unraid-overtemp-shutdown

bwm-ng-0.6-i486-2bj.tgz

 

Can I install unMenu and load the packages like I did in 4.7 or is there another alternative in v5 that I should consider?  Is it possible just to copy over the unmenu folder from my 4.7 backup to the new 5.0 /boot directory?  Also, I've seen where people are having problems updating the GUI so I'm still on the stock v5 GUI awaiting instructions! 

[garycase]

UnMenu works just fine in v5, but I would install it from scratch rather than just copying over your older unmenu folder.

 

You only need the "unmenu_install" download, ... you then run it and it automatically downloads everything.

 

[dgaschk]

Don't install the "new" GUI. It is buggy. Continue to use unMenu.

[betaman]

Thanks everyone for your assistance!  I did a clean install of unmemu and everything seems to be working just fine.  I'll start preclearing my 3TB drives today and do the parity swap.  This is my first parity swap so I don't know if the procedure is the same as with a failed disk (need to research that more) but I was wondering if my system was vulnerable during the parity rebuild or if a disk failed could I still use the old parity drive to reconstruct it?  I'm guessing not but wanted to confirm as I might just preclear both drives at the same time if there's no advantage to waiting on the old parity drive?!

[dgaschk]

You should be able use the old parity to reconstruct a failure during the rebuild.

[betaman]

Thanks for the quick response.  After I hit post I realized that I couldn't preclear the old parity drive at the same time as the new one. unless I wanted the array to be offline the whole time.  Good to know I can use it as a backup until I write something new to the array.