October 2, 201510 yr My array is almost full. I just bought 2 4T disks and I have a spare 2G disk. My smallest drives left in the array are 2 1.5T drives. My thought was to replace those with the 2 4T disks. But... I was looking at my smart data and I have 2 2T disks that have a current sector pending. Now one of those 2T disks (disk6) keeps getting that pending sector and clearing that.. that same disk occasionally gets read errors (but has never red balled) So I think it's a given to get rid of that disk (disk6) Now should I replace the other 2T as well? it's had that same pending sector for a long time. The drive is full so it never really gets written to. The 1.5T drives are 1 year older than the 2Ts.. but their smart data is clean. I was hoping to recycle them to put them in the cache pool as my cache drive (single drive) occasionally quits and can't be seen by the system anymore until I power cycle! I also am thinking I can change to the XFS during this whole process. So what I'm thinking is the worse 2T (disk6) -> spare 2T disk 1.5T disk + 1.5T disk -> 4T new disk other 2T -> other 4T With this I only gain 3T of space from my new 8T of drives and I lose my spare 2T drive... But I can test the other 2 2T drives out of the system and see if they really are ok still or not. If they check out I can re-add them back to the system. (at least one maybe) And then my 2 1.5T drives can go in the cache pool.. What do you think? Thanks, Jim
October 2, 201510 yr I would replace the two 2TB disks first, then perhaps consider adding a larger disk like an 8TB to replace your parity disk, then look at replacing the smaller 1.5TB disks with 3 or 4TB disks.
October 2, 201510 yr Community Expert ...I also am thinking I can change to the XFS during this whole process. So what I'm thinking is the worse 2T (disk6) -> spare 2T disk 1.5T disk + 1.5T disk -> 4T new disk other 2T -> other 4T With this I only gain 3T of space from my new 8T of drives and I lose my spare 2T drive... But I can test the other 2 2T drives out of the system and see if they really are ok still or not. If they check out I can re-add them back to the system. (at least one maybe) And then my 2 1.5T drives can go in the cache pool.. What do you think? Sounds like a plan, but there are some devils in the details. Let us know if you need advice on those.
October 2, 201510 yr Author Sounds like a plan, but there are some devils in the details. Let us know if you need advice on those. This is going to take a while! I'm rsync-ing the bad 2T disk now. Then I'll zero it out and removed it from the array for further testing.. Does rsync do any copy verification once it copies? I know you can set it to do a checksum test before to see it needs to copy.. but once it does copy does it do any check to see that the copy happened correctly? Jim
October 2, 201510 yr Community Expert Sounds like a plan, but there are some devils in the details. Let us know if you need advice on those. This is going to take a while! I'm rsync-ing the bad 2T disk now. Then I'll zero it out and removed it from the array for further testing.. Does rsync do any copy verification once it copies? I know you can set it to do a checksum test before to see it needs to copy.. but once it does copy does it do any check to see that the copy happened correctly? Jim Why aren't you just rebuilding it onto the spare 2TB drive?
October 2, 201510 yr Author Why aren't you just rebuilding it onto the spare 2TB drive? I like keeping parity.. on the very remote chance another drive dies, I'm still protected. Edit: And I'm also changing it to XFS at the same time. Can't do that if UnRaid rebuilds it.
October 2, 201510 yr Community Expert Why aren't you just rebuilding it onto the spare 2TB drive? I like keeping parity.. on the very remote chance another drive dies, I'm still protected. Edit: And I'm also changing it to XFS at the same time. Can't do that if UnRaid rebuilds it. OK, I get it. I've seen the "zero a drive while maintaining parity" method discussed many times on the forum but never used it myself. Not really a built-in or officially documented feature, but go for it. Hope you have backups of anything irreplaceable (you should anyway).
October 2, 201510 yr Author OK, I get it. I've seen the "zero a drive while maintaining parity" method discussed many times on the forum but never used it myself. Not really a built-in or officially documented feature, but go for it. I've used is a couple times in the past with V5 (and probably V4) with success. You just have be very careful! :-)
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