Replacement drive juggling

[arobinson888]

Hello,

 

I currently have a 3TB drive that is showing signs of failure.  From my reading it appears that I can only replace this with a drive of the same size or larger, even though it only has approx. 1.5 TB of data on it.  Since all of my drives are 3 TB what I am wondering is if I use the drive I am currently using for backups (a 4TB drive) and use it to replace my parity drive, and then use my old parity drive (which is 3TB) to replace my failing drive, when I get the replacement drive back, can I use it to replace the new parity drive (4TB) so that I can go back to using that drive (4TB) for backup purposes?

 

I do have a pair of old 2TB drives that I could put into my unraid system to give me more than enough storage space for all of my data that is currently stored on it.  I would really prefer to use them if possible.

[trurl]

Hello,

 

I currently have a 3TB drive that is showing signs of failure.  From my reading it appears that I can only replace this with a drive of the same size or larger, even though it only has approx. 1.5 TB of data on it.  Since all of my drives are 3 TB what I am wondering is if I use the drive I am currently using for backups (a 4TB drive) and use it to replace my parity drive, and then use my old parity drive (which is 3TB) to replace my failing drive, when I get the replacement drive back, can I use it to replace the new parity drive (4TB) so that I can go back to using that drive (4TB) for backup purposes?

What size replacement disk are you planning to get? Why not just go ahead and get another 4TB drive and save yourself that last parity rebuild?

[arobinson888]

The failing drive is under Seagate warranty so I would imagine that they will send back another 3TB unit.  Though they are currently out of stock of them, so it is possible they may send back a 4TB, but I wont count on that.

 

So are you saying that it is possible to rebuild the parity back down to the smaller size drive?  Is it possible to just replace the 3TB with a 2TB and skip all of the parity rebuilding?

[trurl]

The failing drive is under Seagate warranty so I would imagine that they will send back another 3TB unit.  Though they are currently out of stock of them, so it is possible they may send back a 4TB, but I wont count on that.

 

So are you saying that it is possible to rebuild the parity back down to the smaller size drive?  Is it possible to just replace the 3TB with a 2TB and skip all of the parity rebuilding?

You can rebuild parity anytime you want as long as the parity disk is at least as large as the largest data disk. That is what New Config does. There is no way to rebuild a 3TB data disk onto a 2TB data disk though.

[mr-hexen]

Search for "swap-disable".

[arobinson888]

Nuts.  So no way that I can some how physically move the data from the 3TB onto a 2TB and then rebuild the parity?

 

Ok, a long process of rebuilds it is then   Hopefully I won't lose anymore drives till after this is over

 

The swap disable option looks like it could possibly cause issues if something doesn't go right.  I'm not in a particular rush, so I will just work on swapping one drive at a time.  Thanks for all of the help / advice!

[trurl]

Nuts.  So no way that I can some how physically move the data from the 3TB onto a 2TB and then rebuild the parity?

 

Ok, a long process of rebuilds it is then   Hopefully I won't lose anymore drives till after this is over

 

The swap disable option looks like it could possibly cause issues if something doesn't go right.  I'm not in a particular rush, so I will just work on swapping one drive at a time.  Thanks for all of the help / advice!

You could preclear one of the 2TB and add it to the array, copy the 1.5TB of data from the 3TB to the new 2TB, then New Config to remove the 3TB and rebuild parity.