new hardware

[greatkingrat]

So I have my unraid up and running, and have been very happy with it (although I need a cache drive so will be upgrading from plus to pro soon). 

 

However, while changing around hardware I am moving it from a newer dual opteron server (overkill for this) to a very old server board (still opteron, so not THAT old).  All the hardware should be supported without issue.

 

My concern is that I already have 1.5 TB's of stuff on this unRaid, will I run in to any issues getting the server running EXACTLY as it was?  I have it split the files between the drives in one big user share, and it's working great.  My concern is bringing it to the new motherboard (and SATA controllers) will cause it to think that each drive is new, but already formatted.  so although ti won't erase it, it won't see it as a complete raid anymore.  Should I be concerned over this?  Obviously as a newer user I haven't had any experience changing any hardware on my unRaid box other than the hard drives

 

Thanks!

[prostuff1]

You will be fine with moving the current setup to a new board.  Just take a screen capture of your devices page so you know what drives go where and you will be fine.  unRAID will not start unless all the disks are in the correct order so you will have to reassign them to where they need to be and hit the start button.

[greatkingrat]

ahh i see.

 

So as long as disk one in the array is still the same as before, etc etc, it will read it as the same array - EVEN if the actual controllers are completely different.  The only thing is looks at is the drive, and the jump drive.  Am I understanding that correctly?  So this would mean that even if a drive mounts in a different spot in the OS, as long as I assign it to the same spot i'm golden?

[prostuff1]

You are correct.

 

Obviously different controllers will init drives in a different order so unRAID makes sure to not start the array if it see any of that.  The drive that you do need to make sure you get correct is the parity drive.  Any of the data disk can be in any order but if you use user shares that could be screwed up by disks in different places.

 

When you get the disks all set up I would do a parity check just to make sure everything is working correctly.

[greatkingrat]

So the user share is actually the only reason I need the data disks in the same spots?  That's interesting.  Glad to here I won't have to spent a ridiculous amount of time reorganizing for the user share (my split is at 999 so it's literally spread over all the disks...that would be awful haha).

 

Thank you very much.  I haven't done a parity check in a few weeks so I'll run one tonight, and have at this project first thing tomorrow running a parity check afterwords as well

 

 

 

 

[Joe L.]

So the user share is actually the only reason I need the data disks in the same spots?  That's interesting.  Glad to here I won't have to spent a ridiculous amount of time reorganizing for the user share (my split is at 999 so it's literally spread over all the disks...that would be awful haha).

Or... if you have made links directly to the disk shares from windows... What was on //tower/disk2 might be on //tower/disk1 if you physically swap them.

 

Or, if you set the allocation rules to include or exclude specific disks, the user-shares might need a tiny fix or two to point to the new locations.  The User-shares will still give you a consolidated view, so it will make it easier to re-configure the disks as you re-do the cabling and hardware.  Just make certain the parity drive is assigned to the parity slot in the array.  That is the only critical assignment.

Thank you very much.  I haven't done a parity check in a few weeks so I'll run one tonight, and have at this project first thing tomorrow running a parity check afterwords as well

Good thinking... don't want to complicate your life if the array has a problem with the existing hardware.

 

Joe L