I have a 3TB HDD that I would like to use for Parity and was hoping to get instructions on how to do this, maybe they are on here somewhere but I have not found them, I have attached an image of my Disk Array. I would also like to convert my drives over to XFS and was wondering if there is a simple way to do this too?

 

You might find this post helpful:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=37490.msg346739#msg346739

Put new parity drive into system, select it instead of the old parity, and start the array.. It's that simple, it'll recalculate parity.

 

If your wanting to convert to XFS, it's going to be faster and easier just remove parity temporary. Add your old parity drive as a data drive and format it to XFS. Transfer an entire reiserfs drive to it, format the newly empty drive to XFS, and repeat.  You only have 8TB of data so it shouldn't take very long. I'm currently in the process of converting over 200TB of data to XFS. 24/7 transfers going for over a week now and not even close to done.

 

Tyrindor so I just shutdown the system add the new 3TB HDD start up the system and select the new drive for Parity and do nothing with the old one or just assign it over to Data array and then format to XFS?

Assuming all your drives have clean smart reports, the best (safest) way would be to set a new config when you start back up and assign all drives in the slots you want, the new drive in parity, etc. Do NOT check the parity is valid box, and start the array to let the parity build proceed. After the parity build is complete, do a parity check, and look for zero errors. If there are any errors, STOP, and post back here for instructions. If no errors on the parity build or check phase, then stop the array, select XFS as the file system type for your old parity disk, start the array, and format it. Be VERY sure which drive you are operating on, triple check the serial number before you hit format. You will then have an empty XFS drive, and can proceed to copy the contents of another drive to it. I'd use rsync with verification, and don't remove source files. After the rsync is done, issue the same rsync command again, and see if it transfers any more files. If not, you will then have a perfect copy of one of your reiser drives on the XFS drive. Stop the array, triple check which drive you just copied from, set it to be XFS, start the array, check it again, then format it. Lather, rinse, repeat until all drives have been copied. This method maintains parity protection through the whole procedure, and if you make sure nothing writes to the array while the initial parity build to the new disk takes place, you could even put the old parity drive back in place if necessary to recover another disk.

Tyrindor so I just shutdown the system add the new 3TB HDD start up the system and select the new drive for Parity and do nothing with the old one or just assign it over to Data array and then format to XFS?

 

Yes, but like I said if your converting to XFS it's going to be fastest just to disable parity completely until that process is done. The old parity drive can be used as data, but I've never added a new data drive and a new parity drive at the same time (not even sure you can do that without making a new config). You can use the more complicated (and way slower) method of doing it when parity enabled but it is safer. The risk is up to you.

 

Personally what i'd do:

- Verify all my drives are good (check SMART, make sure everything looks good). No pending/reallocated sectors/etc.

- Run Tools > New Config (this will un-assign all your drives!)

- Set all drives as data, including the old parity disk. Format it as XFS.

- Transfer all data from a reiserFS drive to the newly format XFS drive.

- Format the newly emptied drive to XFS.

- Repeat until all drives are XFS.

- Stop array, add new 3TB parity, start array.

 

Some will disagree because you are open to failures this entire process, however it's much faster and easier. It's very unlikely you'll have a failure during that time span, but it could happen. With the amount of data you have, the whole process shouldn't take more than a day or so of transferring.

Many thanks for the detailed responses guys, very helpful.

If you're willing to run "at risk" during the process (as suggested above), then an even simpler approach IF you have backups is to simply update your parity drive to the 3TB drive; then reformat all of the drives as XFS [stop the array and change the file system for all drives to XFS; then Start the array and wait for the formats to complete (fairly quick)];  and finally copy all of your data to the array from your backups.