Fastest way to make an array of non precleared drives

[nightanole]

I have my entire array backed up on another pc.  I would like to convert my existing array (5.0.6) to xfs while doing some house keeping (removing a few 2tb drives and adding a few 3tb drives from another array).  If these hard drives are "trusted" (been precleared in the past and have been opperating in arrays for the past year), what is the quickest way to get a new array up?  Can i just throw it together and hit format and just come back in 12-24 hours? 

[trurl]

Just to make sure I understand. You are OK with formatting all of the drives, so there will no longer be any files on them?

 

unRAID v5 doesn't support XFS so you should go to the latest v6 beta.

 

If you trust the drives, there is no need to preclear them. The only time a drive is required to be clear is when adding it to an array with parity. This is so it will match the existing parity.

 

You can do anything you want without parity, then add parity later and let it build.

 

You would just do a clean install of v6, assign each drive except parity and specify its format, let unRAID format them. Shouldn't take very long to just format instead of clear. Add parity and let it build.

 

Not completely clear on exactly what you will see in the GUI and when since I have not done this, but that is the general idea. In any case, if you don't have any data to lose you can just try it and see what happens.

[nightanole]

Yea dont care about data loss.  I think its easier to use the backup set vs spending the time to move everything off each individual drive, format to xfs, and then move the data back and move on to the next drive.  I have never built an array with out precleared drives before so i wasnt sure if i could just make an array with drives with random stuff on them, as long as i trusted the drives.

[itimpi]

Yea dont care about data loss.  I think its easier to use the backup set vs spending the time to move everything off each individual drive, format to xfs, and then move the data back and move on to the next drive.  I have never built an array with out precleared drives before so i wasnt sure if i could just make an array with drives with random stuff on them, as long as i trusted the drives.

There is no problem if you are not worried about preserving the data on the drives.    If you do a new configuration then there is no need to have the drives pre-cleared as parity is calculated when the array is started with the parity drive present.  Also formatting the drives on initial array definition is only a few minutes.  It is the initial parity calculation that is time consuming - but during that the array is usable.

 

If the drives have been used before in unRAID (so they are already in Reiserfs format) then when you start with the new configuration you may need to explicitly set the format to XFS rather than the default of 'auto'  The reason is that 'auto' is only treated as XFS (the default) if the exiting format is not recognised.  Note, however, as long as you do not mind losing its contents you can change the format of a drive at any point by stopping the array; clicking on the drive to select the desired format; restarting the array; selecting the option to format the drive.