Upgraded to v6 - now want to add bigger drives

[walterg74]

 

Hi Folks, was running v4.7 on a very modest 4 x 1TB array (well 5, but 4 data).

 

I just completed the procedure for a clean install of v6, and it seems to be running just fine. I had formatted flash, installed system, copied over network config etc., and only needed to assign disks and do a parity check (not sure if this last one was mandatory since I was sure it was fine, but hadn't done one in a while anyway, so what the heck..)

 

Anyway, I have 2 new 3TB disks that I want to add to the array. I know one has to replace parity, so looking for some advise to add these disks (I know it-s out there but the chicken in me needs the reassurance... )

 

Should it go something like this?

 

- Install and Connect the 2 drives to the PC

- From command line, do the pre-clear on both drives

- Assign one of the new disks as parity (or better to just install to the same slot/cable as the current parity drive?)

- Rebuild parity

- Preclear the "old" 1TB parity disk?

- Assign the old 1TB parity disk as data disk 5 (and let it format and add to the array)

- Assign the second new 3TB disk as data disk 6  (and let it format and add to the array)

 

Is that more or less right or is something off?

 

Also any recommendations on if I should assign the same size disk contiguously (disk1, disk2, etc) or does that not matter at all?

 

Thanks!

 

[trurl]

I think you've got it!

 

There is a preclear plugin for v6 so you don't have to use the command line. If you want to use the plugin, suggest you read the first and probably the last few pages of the thread since getting it installed isn't well documented in the first post yet.

[walterg74]

I think you've got it!

 

There is a preclear plugin for v6 so you don't have to use the command line. If you want to use the plugin, suggest you read the first and probably the last few pages of the thread since getting it installed isn't well documented in the first post yet.

 

Thanks!

 

I will give it a read and then proceed. I guess Inshould add my UPS support first... V6 seems to have a lot of interesting new stuff...

[garycase]

You can actually do the whole thing in two simple steps ...

 

(1)  Add the 2 new drives to your system;  then start pre-clears on the new 3TB drives [Not actually necessary, but a good idea to give them a good test before using them].

 

(2)  Now just do a New Config (on the Tools menu); and assign all of the drives ... one of the new 3TB drives as parity; the old data drives, the old parity drive, and the other 3TB drive as data.

 

Done        Just Start the array and wait for the initial parity sync to complete;  then do a parity check to confirm it was successful.    Finally, check the button to allow the unformatted drives to be formatted (there will be two of them -- the old parity and the 2nd 3TB drive) ... and then you're all set.

 

Note:  The reason you want do do the format AFTER the parity sync and check is that if you happened to have an issue during the parity sync with one of your old data drives, you could do another New Config using the original configuration with the "Trust Parity" option and rebuild the failed drive.    Not very likely ... but once you format the old parity drive you lose the ability to do that.

 

 

 

[walterg74]

You can actually do the whole thing in two simple steps ...

 

(1)  Add the 2 new drives to your system;  then start pre-clears on the new 3TB drives [Not actually necessary, but a good idea to give them a good test before using them].

 

(2)  Now just do a New Config (on the Tools menu); and assign all of the drives ... one of the new 3TB drives as parity; the old data drives, the old parity drive, and the other 3TB drive as data.

 

Done        Just Start the array and wait for the initial parity sync to complete;  then do a parity check to confirm it was successful.    Finally, check the button to allow the unformatted drives to be formatted (there will be two of them -- the old parity and the 2nd 3TB drive) ... and then you're all set.

 

Note:  The reason you want do do the format AFTER the parity sync and check is that if you happened to have an issue during the parity sync with one of your old data drives, you could do another New Config using the original configuration with the "Trust Parity" option and rebuild the failed drive.    Not very likely ... but once you format the old parity drive you lose the ability to do that.

 

Thanks, that sounds easier (althought the chicken in me says: whaaat? I won't f* it up like that? )

 

One doubt: isn't it recommended that the parity drive be on a motherboard port, etc? Or is that irrelevant nowadays?

[garycase]

Yes, I'd put the parity drive on a motherboard port.    But you can freely move your connections around before you fire up the system and do the New Config.

 

One suggestion:  BEFORE you do anything, Stop the array and change turn Auto Start off  [settings - Disk Settings - Enable AutoStart].    Then you can shut down and install your other disks; move any SATA cables you need to so the parity drive is on a motherboard port; and then boot up and do the New Config.

 

Note:  Whether or not it makes any difference which port the parity drive is on depends on what add-on controller(s) you're using.    If the controllers are on a high-bandwidth slot and have enough bandwidth that they're not throttling your drive's transfer rate, then it doesn't matter.    But I suspect an older system that was running v4.7 may have an old PCI controller card ... so I'd definitely put the parity drive on a motherboard port.

 

[walterg74]

Yes, I'd put the parity drive on a motherboard port.    But you can freely move your connections around before you fire up the system and do the New Config.

 

One suggestion:  BEFORE you do anything, Stop the array and change turn Auto Start off  [settings - Disk Settings - Enable AutoStart].    Then you can shut down and install your other disks; move any SATA cables you need to so the parity drive is on a motherboard port; and then boot up and do the New Config.

 

Note:  Whether or not it makes any difference which port the parity drive is on depends on what add-on controller(s) you're using.    If the controllers are on a high-bandwidth slot and have enough bandwidth that they're not throttling your drive's transfer rate, then it doesn't matter.    But I suspect an older system that was running v4.7 may have an old PCI controller card ... so I'd definitely put the parity drive on a motherboard port.

 

Ok, followed your steps, stopped, change setting, shut down, installed drives powered back up.

 

System started, array stopped.

 

One thing that "surprised"(?) me is that it still had all the correct drive assignations even though I changed cable/position for the parity drive. Was it always like that?  (If hypothetically I did select to start the array now, it would all work fine, right?)

 

Like you suspected, double checked and the card was an older PCI one with 4 SATA ports, so I connect the current parity drive to it and the new disk/parity-to-be to the SATA port 0 on the motherboard (ports are 0-3 on this one).

 

One curiosity is how it selects the **NIX drive letters, why it chose that order ( if you look at the screenshot, top to bottom the physical connections are: card port 2, mobo port 1, mobo port 2, mobo port 3, card port 1, mobo port 0, card port 3...)

 

I guess now I will go check up the pre-clear to set it up properly and the run it on the 2 new 3TB drives.

 

Any harm in jst starting the array now as is while the pre-clear is running?

 

[garycase]

Ever since v5 UnRAID has tracked drives by serial number ... so you can freely move the connections around to any port you want (motherboard, add-in card, etc.) and it will still know where the drives are assigned.

 

If you have not yet done the "New Config" and just want to run the array as it is until you're done pre-clearing the new drives, it's fine to just Start the array and use it.

 

When you're ready to do the New Config, just follow the steps I outlined earlier and you'll have it reconfigured in one step 

[walterg74]

Ever since v5 UnRAID has tracked drives by serial number ... so you can freely move the connections around to any port you want (motherboard, add-in card, etc.) and it will still know where the drives are assigned.

 

If you have not yet done the "New Config" and just want to run the array as it is until you're done pre-clearing the new drives, it's fine to just Start the array and use it.

 

When you're ready to do the New Config, just follow the steps I outlined earlier and you'll have it reconfigured in one step 

 

Ok, so it is new - just To me-

 

Sweet, nice feature!

 

I read the pre-clear thread, so basically I just:

 

1) copy the script to the specific path. I don't see a /boot though, unless it means the root of your drive?  my flash has:

 

\flash\config\plugins

 

and the thread says:

 

/boot/config/plugins/preclear.disk/

 

so I would created the folder preclear.disk in my path above and drop the script there?

 

Also, says I can use the "classic" pre/clear or the faster on renaming it? Do you recommend either?

 

2) install the actuall plugin

 

3) Just use it, no reboot, or service restart or anything?

 

Thanks again!!

[trurl]

Install plugin first, it will create folder.

[walterg74]

Install plugin first, it will create folder.

 

Thanks. Installed it and downloaded the faster and modified script to automatically use the fast option (is this necessary or downloading the "original" faster one will work as long as I specify the fast option in the plugin?).

 

Anyway, seems to be working fine and started pre-clear on the 2 disks

 

Now I really need to add some more cooling here... A couple of disks are at 45...

 

Edit: and of course my shitty server with the pre-clear running jumped to 98-99% CPU usage...

 

[walterg74]

Well...

 

Here's another one for the experts...

 

Where I live we're having some occasional power issues, so of course a little while ago the power went out...now I have a UPS, and set the optoon to shut down after a certain time isnleft, etc. But the question is:

 

What would have probably happened to the pre-clear processes? Shut down too? Or just interrupted on system shutdown? Is it supposed to be as simple as restarting them or something more..?

[itimpi]

Well...

 

Here's another one for the experts...

 

Where I live we're having some occasional power issues, so of course a little while ago the power went out...now I have a UPS, and set the optoon to shut down after a certain time isnleft, etc. But the question is:

 

What would have probably happened to the pre-clear processes? Shut down too? Or just interrupted on system shutdown? Is it supposed to be as simple as restarting them or something more..?

If a system is shutdown while a preclear is in process then it is aborted.  There is no resume option for a preclear - it can only be restarted from the beginning.    There are, however, some command line options to skip certain phases (such as the preread) if you know how far it reached before the shutdown.

[walterg74]

Thanks, seems that's what happened.

 

After power was restored I launched it again...

 

I did notice this... Had 2 disks to pre-clear. When I started the tasks, both at the same time, one disk was going at about 150MB/sec, while the other was at about 64MB/s

 

I thought this was because I launched the first one first and had more resources assigned to it, or whatever...

 

Now I think it was because as others pointed out, depends on the bus speed... That first one was the one connected to a motherboard port, while the other one is connected to the PCI SATA Card...

 

The first one finished with ~18 hours in the cycle:

 

Preclear Successful

... Total time 17:56:41

... Pre-Read time 6:23:55 (130 MB/s)

... Zeroing time 5:03:57 (164 MB/s)

... Post-Read time 6:27:48 (128 MB/s)

 

The second one is still going at 66% of the zeroing after 19.5 hours...

 

So seems that made a lot of difference (2.5 times faster for the one connected to the motherboard port...)

 

So just for curiosity... would I get *much* better speeds if I were to buy a PCI Express card?  The motherboard I'm using only has 2 "old" PCI slots (one being used with a 4/port SATA card) and 1 PCI Express ***1x*** slot.  (It does of course also have the PCI Express x8 -or x16 don't remember- for the video card...).

 

Or would I be better off holding off on that and upgrading the motherboard at a later point..?

 

Also, what type of use would justify more RAM? Right now I only have 2GB and it barely reaches 20%, even now with the pre-clear, etc.

 

 

Thanks!

 

[garycase]

Yes, you'd get MUCH better speeds with a PCIe card instead of the old PCI card, especially if you use a multi-lane card  [Do you have a PCIe x4, x8, or x16 slot available on your motherboard ?? ].

 

A PCI slot has a bandwidth of 133MB/s.    PCIe slots have a minimum of 250MB/s per "lane" of bandwidth  (PCIe v1), growing to 500MB/s with v2 and even higher with v3.    So even if you have an old PCIe v1 board, you'd nearly double the available bandwidth even with a PCIe x1 card.

 

[garycase]

Or would I be better off holding off on that and upgrading the motherboard at a later point..?

 

Depends => Note that during "normal" array usage, when you're likely not using more than 1 or 2 drives at a time, the bandwidth restriction of your PCI card isn't severe, and will make very little difference in the system's performance.    It's only during parity checks or drive rebuilds that it's really slowing things down.

 

I'd be inclined to just hold off if you only have PCIe x1 slots available ... but if you have an x4 or higher slot you can use, then buying a card that takes advantage of that would be a nice upgrade => you can get a trusty old PCIe x4 Adaptec 1430SA 4-port card for ~ $30 on e-bay.

 

[walterg74]

You can actually do the whole thing in two simple steps ...

 

(1)  Add the 2 new drives to your system;  then start pre-clears on the new 3TB drives [Not actually necessary, but a good idea to give them a good test before using them].

 

(2)  Now just do a New Config (on the Tools menu); and assign all of the drives ... one of the new 3TB drives as parity; the old data drives, the old parity drive, and the other 3TB drive as data.

 

Done        Just Start the array and wait for the initial parity sync to complete;  then do a parity check to confirm it was successful.    Finally, check the button to allow the unformatted drives to be formatted (there will be two of them -- the old parity and the 2nd 3TB drive) ... and then you're all set.

 

Note:  The reason you want do do the format AFTER the parity sync and check is that if you happened to have an issue during the parity sync with one of your old data drives, you could do another New Config using the original configuration with the "Trust Parity" option and rebuild the failed drive.    Not very likely ... but once you format the old parity drive you lose the ability to do that.

 

OK I have finally finished the preclear.

 

One doubt I have a looking at the steps you gave me:  if I do it that way while it won't format those two drives will it still count them for the initial parity check and then when I do format them won't it do another parity check or write to Parity at least ?  Or is that inevitable anyway ?

[garycase]

... when I do format them won't it do another parity check or write to Parity at least ?

 

No, it won't do another parity check.  When it formats the drives, it will, of course, as with any write, update parity to reflect the writes done in the format (which are very few -- a format operation takes under a minute).

 

[walterg74]

 

No, it won't do another parity check.  When it formats the drives, it will, of course, as with any write, update parity to reflect the writes done in the format (which are very few -- a format operation takes under a minute).

 

 

Sweet, thanks!

 

Seems I have no peace... Yesterday Booted up, says "disk 4 missing"...

 

Re-seated cable, booted up again, it's there...

 

Today booted up again, "disk 4 missing"....

 

Time to change that cable I guess..?

 

Edit: great.. So I booted up again, disk was there I assigned it but blue ball..

 

Besides powering down and changing the cable first, what did I have to do to trust that disk since I know it's ok?

 

[trurl]

 

No, it won't do another parity check.  When it formats the drives, it will, of course, as with any write, update parity to reflect the writes done in the format (which are very few -- a format operation takes under a minute).

 

 

Sweet, thanks!

 

Seems I have no peace... Yesterday Booted up, says "disk 4 missing"...

 

Re-seated cable, booted up again, it's there...

 

Today booted up again, "disk 4 missing"....

 

Time to change that cable I guess..?

 

Edit: great.. So I booted up again, disk was there I assigned it but blue ball..

 

Besides powering down and changing the cable first, what did I have to do to trust that disk since I know it's ok?

According to the legend when you turn on help, blue means new device. Is it new or is there data on the disk?

[walterg74]

 

No, it won't do another parity check.  When it formats the drives, it will, of course, as with any write, update parity to reflect the writes done in the format (which are very few -- a format operation takes under a minute).

 

 

Sweet, thanks!

 

Seems I have no peace... Yesterday Booted up, says "disk 4 missing"...

 

Re-seated cable, booted up again, it's there...

 

Today booted up again, "disk 4 missing"....

 

Time to change that cable I guess..?

 

Edit: great.. So I booted up again, disk was there I assigned it but blue ball..

 

Besides powering down and changing the cable first, what did I have to do to trust that disk since I know it's ok?

According to the legend when you turn on help, blue means new device. Is it new or is there data on the disk?

 

No, no, it's not new. It's an existing data disk of the array that was showing up as not present/present intermitently,  I suspect due to a faulty cable.

So it does have the data but now unRAID is showing it as new now, probably my fault for starting the

Array before and then rebooting.

[trurl]

 

No, it won't do another parity check.  When it formats the drives, it will, of course, as with any write, update parity to reflect the writes done in the format (which are very few -- a format operation takes under a minute).

 

 

Sweet, thanks!

 

Seems I have no peace... Yesterday Booted up, says "disk 4 missing"...

 

Re-seated cable, booted up again, it's there...

 

Today booted up again, "disk 4 missing"....

 

Time to change that cable I guess..?

 

Edit: great.. So I booted up again, disk was there I assigned it but blue ball..

 

Besides powering down and changing the cable first, what did I have to do to trust that disk since I know it's ok?

According to the legend when you turn on help, blue means new device. Is it new or is there data on the disk?

 

No, no, it's not new. It's an existing data disk of the array that was showing up as not present/present intermitently,  I suspect due to a faulty cable.

So it does have the data but now unRAID is showing it as new now, probably my fault for starting the

Array before and then rebooting.

I think you will have to New Config.

[walterg74]

 

No, no, it's not new. It's an existing data disk of the array that was showing up as not present/present intermitently,  I suspect due to a faulty cable.

So it does have the data but now unRAID is showing it as new now, probably my fault for starting the

Array before and then rebooting.

I think you will have to New Config.

 

Well I was going to anyway because I needed to add the two 3TB disks (see trail). But now with this new thing I'm worried if I have to first do it just "as is" (without those two new disks) so it will reinstate the "slippery" drive correctly..?

[trurl]

If there is a new reply in that post please fix your quoting so I can find it. Preview is your friend.

[walterg74]

If there is a new reply in that post please fix your quoting so I can find it. Preview is your friend.

 

Fixed