I am switching my cache drive over from a 5200RPM SUPER OLD DRIVE to a Samsung 850 EVO SSD tonight. Below are the steps I planned to follow, hoping I am not missing any steps and if so maybe someone to help me out or confirm they look good:

 

0) Stop all programs writing / reading from the cache.

1) Back up your cache to an array disk as a temporary measure.

rsync -avp /mnt/cache /mnt/Users/WHATEVER

2) Shutdown

3) Swap the cache disk

4) Reboot

5) Assign the new disk as the cache, (choose format settings) and start the array (which should format the disk)

6) Copy the temporary backup of your cache back to the new cache. (Make sure it passes the look test when your done to verify the directory structure looks the same)

7) Restart any programs writing / reading from the cache.

Make sure any "Cache-Only" shares are still labeled that way (during this process they might get recreated with default settings) so that mover doesn't move them by mistake.

I am switching my cache drive over from a 5200RPM SUPER OLD DRIVE to a Samsung 850 EVO SSD tonight. Below are the steps I planned to follow, hoping I am not missing any steps and if so maybe someone to help me out or confirm they look good:

 

0) Stop all programs writing / reading from the cache.

1) Back up your cache to an array disk as a temporary measure.

rsync -avp /mnt/cache /mnt/Users/WHATEVER

2) Shutdown

3) Swap the cache disk

4) Reboot

5) Assign the new disk as the cache, (choose format settings) and start the array (which should format the disk)

6) Copy the temporary backup of your cache back to the new cache. (Make sure it passes the look test when your done to verify the directory structure looks the same)

7) Restart any programs writing / reading from the cache.

Make sure any "Cache-Only" shares are still labeled that way (during this process they might get recreated with default settings) so that mover doesn't move them by mistake.

 

Looks good, you could also rsync to a specific disk in the array if you want to avoid the risk of spreading your backup over multiple disks in the intermediate step. Your destination would just be /mnt/diskX/WHATEVER where X is the disk number you want to copy to.

 

 

Why not add the ssd outside the array, copy the cache disk to it, and then reassign the cache disk. Saves the slow copies to the array.

 

Actually, I would stop anything writing you cache and then put the new cache in place, and then mount the old cache outside the array and coPy it to the new cache. That avoids the issue of trying to format the ssd properly.

 

That's what I would do.

Following the OPs method don't you also need to unassign the old cache drive and start the array again before shutting down?