Hello, apologies if this was asked before... I couldn't find anything on this when I searched.

 

My question is this: I'm building a new unraid server and plan to use the old 2TB parity drive from my old system as the parity drive in the NEW system. I don't need to migrate or preserve any data from the old system.

 

The new system does currently have 2 unprotected data drives installed and they do contain data that I need to keep. I'm worried if I simply add the parity drive from the old system to this arrangement that I could trash my new array. Do I need to wipe or re-initialize the old parity drive in any way before adding it as the parity drive to the new system?

 

Thanks

 

 

I'm sure there are other ways, but I would suggest doing a pre_clear on the parity drive before adding it. That will wipe all of the old data and make sure the drive is in good working order.

Nothing at all to do.  Just add the drive to the system;  boot; and assign it as the parity drive.

 

Then Start the array and it will do the initial parity sync with no impact on your data.

 

The drive DOES need to be as large as any of the data drives in the system -- but as long as that's true, that's all there is to it.

 

I don't see any need to do a pre-clear, as the old parity drive has clearly been thoroughly exercised and is working well.  You might want to have a look at its SMART status just to be safe.

 

I added the old parity drive to my new server and parity-sync is underway. Will report back later today once it completes.

Parity-sync completed without any issues. I will be running a full parity check next and expect that will go well also.

 

Thanks garycase and CrashnBrn for the help...

You're most welcome.  Glad it went smoothly & you now have a fault-tolerant system