[SOLVED]Upgrade advice needed please

[JaY_III]

Currently am on v5.05

second Key in on V6 beta 4 or 5 I think

 

Cache - WD 2TB Green (Smart Error reading at block starting at xxx  Fails short test at 90%)

Disk 1 - 1 TB WD Black

Disk 2 - 1 TB Seagate 7200.12

Disk 3 - 1.5B Seagate 7200.12

Parity - WD 2 TB Green

 

All Drive are still Green dots, with OLD age showing in SMART status and pre fail warnings.

 

Aprox 2.75TB of 3.5TB is used.

 

What I plan to do is pick up 3 or 4 Sagate 4 TB  NAS drives (ST4000VN000).

Do a 3 pass Pre Clear on the new disks (possibly use the WD Black as a Cache)

 

Now this is where some advice would be helpful.

Should I move to the V6 Beta 10 as my main everyday running config?

The  fresh drives would be an easy time to switch to the new file systems.

 

What do you think my best option of transfering  the data to the new HDD be?

Copy all data to one of the new 4TB drives, start my array with no parity, then coping the data to disk 1-3, and once complete use that as my parity drive?

 

 

Any advice on my best options would be very helpful, thanks.

[Frank1940]

I think you need to give a bit more information on how you are using unRAID.  Is  it strictly a server or are you running a lot of plugins?  (I really don't consider apcupsd, powerdown cache directories, and Dynamix to be plugins as they are almost required accessories for proper operation of the server function.)

 

Are you willing to to through each and very update in the beta series and follow the threads on the development process?  Are you willing to subject yourself and your data to a possible data loss?  These are things you have to think about when using beta software.

[JaY_III]

Using Unmenu, Dynamix and Cache Directorys only.

 

Its 80% a storage location for XBMC

15% a secondary backup (using rsync) for Family photos and such (also have a RAID 1 backing that up)

5% for random stuff.

 

 

The only unreplaceable data I have is also backed up with a RAID 1 array, so data loss will be a PITA but not the end of the world.

 

64Bit support is something i most certanily want, as i have 30Gb of RAM (x58 chipset, Tri-Channel), so no need for OS tricks to see it all.

 

looking at the release schedule, it seems awful close to 6.0.  Are RC's planned?

I just want to avoid having to switch file systems so 6.0 and new hard drives seemed like a good chance to get that done.

[garycase]

I'd definitely switch to v6 for the new setup, as there's no further development planned for v5.  Beta 10a is very stable, so it's a good place to start.    I don't expect it to be too long before the RC phase, and v6 final should be out within a few weeks of that unless there are issues with the RC  (I think the extensive Beta testing with v6 has mitigated most of that possibility).

 

[Frank1940]

If you do decide to go with a beta release, you have to commit to staying up to date with each release within a few days of it coming out.  (I seem to recall that Limetech has stated that they will not provide support for problems encountered with old beta releases.)  You also have to track the forum threads to see if any of your fellow beta testers are finding any issues.  Yes, you will be a beta tester!  You have to be prepared to roll back to any earlier release and/or to shutdown (or restrict) server operation if a serious problem is found. 

 

I point this out because that was a problem in one of the recent beta releases where data loss was a possibility.  In fairness, I am not tracking the beta 6 threads close enough to know how many people actually lost data. 

 

I also should point out that I did use the beta releases for version 5 and never had any problem in doing so.  The only real issue that I recall having was with the Realtek Network chip set on my motherboards not being supported.  Remember, all of those beta and RC releases for version 5 were required because of problems that were uncovered by the beta testers!

 

You have to weigh all of the pro-and-cons and decide what you would prefer to do.

[JaY_III]

Well as of right now I have a fresh instal with my second key running Beta 10 doing a preclear on 4 drives

3.5 hours in just over 40% done my Pre Clear Read.

 

I am already missing Dynamix and its plugins.

 

 

 

[garycase]

If you really want Dynamix, and don't need any of the features of v6, then just use v5.0.5

 

But be aware that as far as I know Limetech does not plan any further development of v5

 

... and clearly you'd like to take advantage of that "... 30Gb of RAM " that you have => although the reality is that if you're only using the UnRAID box as a dedicated NAS you really don't need nearly that much.

 

You indicated you want to do two fundamental things, however => (a) use your 30GB; and (b) switch off of Reiser.    Only v6 will allow that ... so you may just want to get used to the stock interface (which, in reality, isn't bad -- especially when supplemented by UnMenu).

 

[JaY_III]

its the quick and easy Smart Reports, system temps, Cache Dir and status page.

I can setup Cahe Dir without dynamix and unmenu has the ability to pull a smart report and see system status just not as pretty or with the same detail.

Not sure about monitoring my CPU and system temps 100% yet.

 

 

It was just a very well done and polished package.  So hopefully that gets brought over when all the UI changes are done so the dev can actually keep up this time

[JaY_III]

So pre-clear went well.

I believe about 82 hours for the four 4TB drives to do a 3 pass pre-clear.

 

Just in the process of a Parity-Sync right now and then plan moving data over to the new drives. 

 

Does this Plan sound ok?

 

Set a 4TB drive up as the cache disk.

rsync all 3.5TB of Data to the new 4 TB disk set as cache.

Remove old disks and Parity

Install remaining 3 4TB disks (without parity for now)

invoke mover

After mover finishes, re-assign 1st 4TB disk from cache to parity

run parity-sync.

[garycase]

Sounds okay, although I'd be more inclined to just remove the old drives;  create your new array with 4TB drives (with parity); and then, one-at-a-time, copy the data from the old drives to the array from a different PC  (using the free LinuxReader to read them).

 

 

[JaY_III]

Thanks for all the advice and comments.

 

I didn't use the different PC , but the copy to cache and use the mover method.

Mover script is running now. 

Picked this as more automation makes my life simpler.

 

Only think i had to do to make the mover script work is manually create the top level share dir on each drive.

 

and thanks gary for the tip of using Linux Reader http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/

thats going to come in handy in the future.