danioj Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Hi guys, I have just finished building my backup server (v6) and migrated all data from current main server (v5) over. Now I've built my new main server (v6) and am going to populate it with the disks of my current main sever. Quick question - I am expecting to just drop these into my new main server under a new config and format all disks as xfs - setup all shares and migrate data from backup server to new main server. Is this a reasonable plan or am I missing something? I don't have to preclear all the disks again (for instance) do I? - in this example I would prefer to know this upfront as I don't like to wait for a Unraid to clear them!! Ta, Daniel Link to comment
garycase Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 No, you don't need to pre-clear them => they've all been in active service so you know they're good disks; and they don't need to be cleared, because you're not adding them to an existing array that you want to maintain parity on. You can simply put them all in the server; do a New Config and assign all of your drives; set the format type to XFS; and then you're ready to go. When you Start the array it'll format all the drives ... and your array will be ready to go. Doing it this way DOES, of course, wipe all the data from the disks ... but since you have a complete backup on a brand new system, that's a small risk => and it's FAR faster than doing a drive-by-drive migration from RFS to XFS. Link to comment
danioj Posted May 19, 2015 Author Share Posted May 19, 2015 Cool! Thought so! Nice to have it confirmed - I like to have things well planned. Hate winging it. Roger on the data warning. Agree it's a risk as I'm essentially reducing 2 Parity protected copies of my data to 1 for a short period. However baring an act of God physically destroying the backup server, I - like you - feel the risk of data loss is quite low and I'm happy to take it. Thank you once again! Link to comment
garycase Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Just be sure (as I'm certain you will) that your backup is absolutely up-to-date and complete before you shut down the primary server and move all the disks to the new one Link to comment
danioj Posted May 19, 2015 Author Share Posted May 19, 2015 Wilco! I have a checklist! Link to comment
SSD Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Doing it this way DOES, of course, wipe all the data from the disks ... but since you have a complete backup on a brand new system, that's a small risk => and it's FAR faster than doing a drive-by-drive migration from RFS to XFS. But isn't this destroying your backup at the time it is needed most - when you are about to do wholesale whole array operation? I personally would not pick that moment to totally put all my eggs in one basket! I would do the normal disk migration. If you have a backup, forgo adding parity until all of the disks are lauded over, and then add parity at the end. This will also make the operation much faster, but not make you totally dependent on the backup. Link to comment
ysss Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Why not keep your old reiserfs disks as backup? Lessen the step, keeps both parity and serves the purpose as a backup.. Link to comment
garycase Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 ... totally put all my eggs in one basket! That basket, however, is a new, fully up-to-date, parity-protected backup server. Yes, there's some risk ... but considering the risk many folks take of having NO backup, I'd say it's very small. The alternative would be to take the risk one drive at a time -- reformatting it; then copying the data that had been on it back to the array from his backup; or to add an extra drive to his main server and do a one-drive-at-a-time copy/migration to XFS. The SAFEST approach would be to simply move all the drives to the new server and leave them alone (still Reiser) ... and then just use XFS for any new drives added to that server. But if he wants an all-XFS array, I don't see any problem just reformatting everything and copying it back ... that's by far the quickest way to do it. That could be done quicker by not assigning a parity drive to the new configuration until the copies are done ... that would make the full copy even quicker (less than half the time). Link to comment
garycase Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 Why not keep your old reiserfs disks as backup? Lessen the step, keeps both parity and serves the purpose as a backup.. He's using those disks as his data store in the new main server. He just built a brand new backup server Link to comment
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