How best to proceed...

[sully]

So...

 

I've had my eye on an unRAID setup for a few years now and I've finally gathered all the hardware.  Now I need to decide if it's the right time to pull the trigger.

 

My main concern is:

 

Can I build the server now (9 or 10 3TB drives to start), or do I need to wait till the Dual Parity feature makes it into the product?

 

To be quite honest, the lack of dual parity has been the main reason I've not pursued the project for the past couple of years, I've had much of the hardware ready to go for most of this time.

 

I don't want to spin my wheels now, purchasing the license(s) and building the server; and then find out that I've some how backed myself into a corner and not be able to utilize the new feature.

 

Also, I intend to add more 3TB drives to the system once I have the server up and running and I can re-purpose the drives that now serve as back-ups (i.e., preclear them and be confident in the SMART status).  Would this cause any trouble?  Me thinks not, but I want to rest assured.

 

Thanks!

[ashman70]

Many of us have been running UnRaid with single parity for a long time, there is nothing wrong with single parity, obviously dual parity is better, but in a drive failure scenario with single parity you are covered. One thing you should know is that your UnRaid server should not contain the only copy of your data, you should have your data backed up and duplicated somewhere. With this in place, the risk of losing data in a single parity situation is mitigated by your backups. You will be able to upgrade to 6.2 when it is finally released and then take advantage of the dual parity feature. I say build your server now and start getting to know UnRaid and using many of its fantastic features.

[sully]

I appreciate the response, but it doesn't address any of my questions.

 

I'm aware that unRAID serves as a wonderful platform with single parity.  However, I want to deploy a dual parity server and it is my understanding that after years of requests, a version of unRAID with dual parity is in the works. 

 

What I want to know is, what discussion, if any has there been about the migration from single to dual parity.  I've done my Google research and similar searches on the message boards here and haven't found what I'm looking for.  If there hasn't been any discussion, or if there is just no info, then I'm fine with that answer.

 

I may well decide to build a v6.xx box, as I'd like to think that the development will include a way to deploy the feature to legacy users and so I'll just keep a spare drive available to serve as the second parity drive... or I may not. 

 

BUT, on the off chance, that I'll need to start from scratch to have the one feature that has been the sticking point for me adopting unRAID for years, makes me want to reach out to the community for an answer to a specific question before I pull the trigger on purchasing the pro-license that I'll need for all the drives I want in the system.

[trurl]

See the Announcements subforum. A beta release with dual parity has been available for about a week now.

 

If you don't want to use the beta you can go with single parity for now. Since all drives in unRAID are independent filesystems adding another parity disk is very easy.

[bkastner]

The migration from single party to dual parity is pretty straight forward. You can just stop the array, assign the second parity disk and restart the array. It will then build the second parity for you.

 

If you are dead set on starting with dual parity you are likely going to want to wait for a bit. There is a beta18 of UnRAID 6.2 available that is the first public beta to include dual parity, but there have been a number of issues with NFS and SAMBA that would likely discourage you from moving to it today. That being said, LmeTech (LT) is working on beta19 that should hopefully address most of these issues. If you read through the 6.2-beta18 thread you will see discussions of people doing the single to dual parity upgrade process (as well as comments on the current issues identified and LTs responses).

 

For most of us without a spare/test box it will likely be several weeks/months before 6.2 is stable enough for us to move to, but rest assured that everyone running 6.1 today with single parity will be able to upgrade to 6.2 with dual parity when they feel the time is right. LT does a great job of supporting their existing userbase and trying to ensure no-one is left behind.

[sully]

Thank you both.  Just the kind of straight answers I was hoping for...  Awesome...