Okay - so did some shopping and got 2x3TB drives and 1x 4TB drive. A random benefactor got me a HBA card that will be replacing my

dated BR10i, which cannot use all of this extra space.

 

I am also planning on firing up a jbod/das case since i am phsyically out of space in my current server.

 

What's the best order to do this in without screwing something up? i've always tried to practice changing 1 thing a time - to avoid confusion of WHAT caused something to fail.

 

Sooo to that end - this is my plan:

 

Does it pass the Sanity Check?

 

[*]Passthru new HBA to UnRaid

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] re-cable using same slots/positions as BR10i

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] Insert/upgrade new parity drive (at 4TB, this is the largest drive in the array, so default to parity). pre-clear first?

[*] step thru parity replace process from wiki [http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Manual#Add_one_or_more_new_disks].

[*] connect port 0 of HBA to sas expander.

[*] recable from expander to drives, using same physical locations/cable connections Port 0 for disks 1-4; port 1 for disks 5-8.

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] add remaining 3TB drives to array.

 

Bonus Q; on pre-clear - can i pre-clear drives that are attached to the HBA, but not assigned a array slot (yet) ?

 

what gotchas should I be wary of here?

 

Unraid: 5.0-rc16c; ESXi 5.5

...

[*]Passthru new HBA to UnRaid

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] re-cable using same slots/positions as BR10i

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] Insert/upgrade new parity drive (at 4TB, this is the largest drive in the array, so default to parity). pre-clear first?

[*] step thru parity replace process from wiki [http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Manual#Add_one_or_more_new_disks].

[*] connect port 0 of HBA to sas expander.

[*] recable from expander to drives, using same physical locations/cable connections Port 0 for disks 1-4; port 1 for disks 5-8.

[*] Boot and check to make sure drive assignments didn't change.

[*] add remaining 3TB drives to array.

 

Bonus Q; on pre-clear - can i pre-clear drives that are attached to the HBA, but not assigned a array slot (yet) ?

 

what gotchas should I be wary of here?

 

Unraid: 5.0-rc16c; ESXi 5.5

Sounds like it should work.  I wouldn't worry as much about drive assignments changing.  If you get a screen capture of the drive assignments first you can re arrange the drives later if for some reason they don't maintain order.  With 5.0 it is less likely they will change since they are mounted by the drives ID (serial number and model is a part of that I believe).  I would however add a couple of items.  First backup your flash drive or at least the config directory which is where drive assignments are stored.  Then run a parity check before doing the rest of your process to make sure everything is working correctly before you change anything.  While that is running you might be able to preclear some drives because you should be able to preclear drives even the 4TB parity as long as they aren't IN the array currently.  I always run 3 cycles to cache any DOAs.  I have had drives die on 2nd or 3rd cycle so I never run just one.  But I don't think the added time is worth running more than 3.  Also remember after replacing your parity drive to run a parity CHECK immediately after the parity BUILD to ensure the build worked correctly.  If your other new drives are not to replace existing drives they can be added after the check has completed.  They should be the only unformatted drives present and you will then be presented an option to format them.  Double check that it is only those drives that need formatting and format them.  You would then be good to add files to them.  If the new drives are to replace existing drives then proceed one drive at a time to replace them.  Remembering to run a parity check after each drive has been rebuilt to verify the rebuild.

Sounds like it should work.  I wouldn't worry as much about drive assignments changing.  If you get a screen capture of the drive assignments first you can re arrange the drives later if for some reason they don't maintain order.  With 5.0 it is less likely they will change since they are mounted by the drives ID (serial number and model is a part of that I believe).  I would however add a couple of items.  First backup your flash drive or at least the config directory which is where drive assignments are stored.  Then run a parity check before doing the rest of your process to make sure everything is working correctly before you change anything.  While that is running you might be able to preclear some drives because you should be able to preclear drives even the 4TB parity as long as they aren't IN the array currently.  I always run 3 cycles to cache any DOAs.  I have had drives die on 2nd or 3rd cycle so I never run just one.  But I don't think the added time is worth running more than 3.  Also remember after replacing your parity drive to run a parity CHECK immediately after the parity BUILD to ensure the build worked correctly.  If your other new drives are not to replace existing drives they can be added after the check has completed.  They should be the only unformatted drives present and you will then be presented an option to format them.  Double check that it is only those drives that need formatting and format them.  You would then be good to add files to them.  If the new drives are to replace existing drives then proceed one drive at a time to replace them.  Remembering to run a parity check after each drive has been rebuilt to verify the rebuild.

 

Thanks! yes - someone mentioned about the parity (in the other thread to be deleted). i will get a second flash drive ready to go. current flash drive is symlinked to a windows machine and crashplan'd offsite. but to be safe, will have another on hand, with config.

 

the excitement grows! i hate that my parity drive is the ONLY 4TB drive in my array at the moment, but at least now i'm future-ready for the next 1/2 decade (hopefully).