Good day Crew - new server is up and running 6b12.  All disks passed 3 levels of preclear.  Data disks XFS, Parity BTRFS raid 1 pool.

 

Parity 4TB HGST_HDN724040ALE640, Disk 1 3TB WDC_WD30EZRX-00MMMB0, Disk 2 3TB ST33000651AS

 

Parity built and looks good.  Using Fill up with 70 GB free/level.  Using ROBOCOPY to copy contents from //TOWER/sharename to //TOWER2/sharename by share.  I am doing this is steps to keep each shares data on 1 disk as much as possible. 

 

After writing about 100 GB to  Disk 2 that disk was disabled.  Smart no longer reports.  I deleted the contents off of disk 2 and I have been copying via robocopy to //TOWER2/DISK3/sharename.  I do not trust this drive, and it is my only 3 TB seagate around.  I have a 4 TB HGST preclearing now to replace this.

 

1 - May I check parity with a disabled disk?

2 - Once the 3rd preclear looks good may I simply stop the array, swap out disk2, restart the array, rebuild parity?

 

Thanks

1) NO

2) If I understand you correctly, you don't intend to rebuild disk 2, you just want to put a different disk in its place. If this is correct, you can just do New Config.

 

You can do it now and let it build parity while the other disk preclears and then since that new disk will be clear you can just add it to the array since a clear disk already matches parity.

 

Or you can wait until the preclear is finished and assign the new disk, do New Config, and let it build parity.

You could just replace disk 2'and rebuild. Pre-clear the disk first in any case..

As noted already, you can't check parity with a disabled disk.

 

I'd stop your copies for now;  do a New Config with only the good disks; and let parity rebuild, so you have fault-tolerance in the array with your good disks.    Then, when the pre-clear is finished on the 4TB drive, just add it to the array ... it will just take a few minutes to format and you'll be ready to go.

 

thanks crew!

 

data transfer was stopped when power went out after first 15" of snow arrived... it has been back up for a little while now.

 

1 - first 4 TB preclear was NEARLY done when the server shut down... dang - restarted.

2 - new config run

3 - good parity disk, disk 1 (65.1 GB/3TB free), disk 3 (now 2 - 1.11TB/2TB free), 2 cache drives - rebuilding parity.  NO other drives in array.

 

... fingers crossed that power stays up at least 9 hours to allow array to become protected.

... fingers crossed that power stays up at least 9 hours to allow array to become protected.

As far as I'm concerned, a UPS on any server is a requirement.  Mind you I'm not talking about one with a 9 hour capacity, but enough to get you through those blips.  And in a situation where I thought that a power outages are going to be happening, I wouldn't be running the equipment.

both my unraid machines are on apc smart-ups 1000.

 

This machine is on a brand new 1000 battery set

 

My main unraid server is OFF for now - we are being hit with a blizzard, so this machine may still need to be turned off - but we are also between 2 LARGE switching stations so our power outages are seldom longer than a hour (though brownouts are NASTY), and the 1000 lets this power hungry machine run for about 1.5 hours sans juice