Hi Guys

 

I am currently trying to scope how i will transfer data into my raid and have been looking for information but cannot seems to find a soloution.

I currently have the following drives which are mostly full >80-100% full of data not in a raid.

500gb

500gb

1TB

1.5TB

2TB

 

120GB ssd (will use for cache)

 

I have just purchased a 4TB WD Red and would like to use unraid to pool all of my data and use the 4TB as a parity(at a later date i will phase out the 500GB drives with larger disks). 

So i plan to move all the data from the disks over to the 4TB(might have to delete some data) and then create the RAID with the smaller drives being empty(not sure how to calculate the total size of the new pool btw is there some doco on this?), once the raid is up i move the data to the new pool and then can i add the 4TB as a parity once its empty?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Yes, that will work.

 

Your new "pool" or array is just the sum of all the disks (excluding the parity disk)

 

0.5+0.5+1+1.5+2 TB = 5.5TB

 

If you don't want to delete any data then you could change your procedure a bit.

 

Copy the 2 big disks onto the 4TB

Install the small ones in unRAID that would give you 3.5 TB free

Copy the 3 small disks (2 TB in total to unRAID)

Install the now empty small disks (gives you a total of 5.5 TB)

Copy the 3.5TB from the 4TB disk back to unRAID.

 

then install the 4 TB as the parity

 

Done!

 

the data is moving around a fair bit during that operation. Be sure you have a backup before you start. And check the health of your disks.

If you can/want to invest in a second 4TB disk you could avoid the multiple copies and keep the original disks intact until the copy has finished.

 

Install the first 4TB disk as data, copy all the data

Install the second 4TB disk as parity (you could install parity at the start, but it will be faster this way)

once everything is good, format and pre-clear the "old" disks and add them to the array.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for quick and detailed response Roland.

5.5TB is going to be fantastic, im so pumped to finally have a organised digital library of all my stuff, its been years of files all over different drives and never a good solution.

 

 

You will enjoy it.

I use unRAID about 2 years and love how far it has come even in that short time.

 

For your "pool" or array in unRAID, it is the sum of all the data drives. You just need to make sure your parity drive is greater or equal to the biggest of your individual drives. One of the big advantages of unRAID is that you can mix-n-match different drives in your protected array.

 

Have fun!

You do have to understand that you can not copy between any user share and individual disks. (that is why the individual disks are not automatically made visible on the network via NFS or SMB!)    For what you are planning to do you must do a disk-to-disk copy.

 

I would suggest that you read this post first and ask questions if it is not clear what you are to do:

 

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

 

 

And don't skip over this bit of advice:

 

Be sure you have a backup before you start. And check the health of your disks.