Should i preclear my old parity drive?

[cherritaker]

Hello i have not upgraded my parity in a few months and now i have taken my old 6tb and upgraded it to a 8tb parity. Now that i have my array back online it shows it as a available drive not sure if i should preclear again or if its ok to add it as a data drive.

[Frank1940]

See here:

 

    http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Disk_Configuration_Changes

 

You want to study the section entitled "Replace a Single Disk with a Bigger One"  The section subsection of the instruction appears to be the case  you are describing.  If this does not work, post back with your question. 

[cherritaker]

I precleared my new 8tb it passed and i replaced my old 6tb with my new 8tb the rebuild went smooth and completed. My question is should i preclear my old 6tb parity before adding it to the array or replacing a smaller one with this one. Or is it fine to just use it as it sits without having to preclear it again.

[interwebtech]

I precleared my new 8tb it passed and i replaced my old 6tb with my new 8tb the rebuild went smooth and completed. My question is should i preclear my old 6tb parity before adding it to the array or replacing a smaller one with this one. Or is it fine to just use it as it sits without having to preclear it again.

 

If you precleared it before adding it as the original parity its probably not necessary to do it again. If its never been precleared, a pass or two will tell you if there are any potential problems.

[trurl]

I precleared my new 8tb it passed and i replaced my old 6tb with my new 8tb the rebuild went smooth and completed. My question is should i preclear my old 6tb parity before adding it to the array or replacing a smaller one with this one. Or is it fine to just use it as it sits without having to preclear it again.

If it is used to rebuild a smaller drive then it doesn't need to be clear. If it is added to a new slot it must be clear so parity is maintained. If you don't clear it unRAID will clear it for you. The most recent versions clear drives without taking the array offline.

[John_M]

As trurl says, but since it's a known good drive I would personally skip the pre-read phase of pre-clear. Depending on how much of a hurry I was in, I'd consider skipping the post-read phase too.

[garycase]

Your old parity drive has clearly been well-exercised, so I see no reason to bother with a pre-clear.

 

Assuming you're running v6.2, there's no longer any reason to pre-clear a drive -- UnRAID will clear it without taking your array offline, so you can simply assign it as a new array drive and it will automatically be added after it's cleared.

 

[cherritaker]

Awesome guys thanks for the info always glad i can find the help i need.

[leeknight1981]

Evening all

Ok i currently have Dual Parity 2 x 8TB, I am replacing Parity #1 with a 12TB WD. I have put the 12TB in and have set it to pre clear while its in Unassigned Devices (Did i Fuck Up Here)? When i add the new 12TB as Parity #1 will it force another Pre Clear? im on stage 5 of 5 Post read 51% and so far its taken 54 hours.

is it ok to leave Parity #2 in while it rebuilds as its only 8TB 

 

 

TIA 

L33

[John_M]

It would have made more sense to start a new thread as your questions don't really relate to the original post.

 

3 hours ago, leeknight1981 said:

I have put the 12TB in and have set it to pre clear while its in Unassigned Devices (Did i Fuck Up Here)?

The Preclear plugin will only run on unassigned devices. You can not preclear a device that's already assigned.

 

3 hours ago, leeknight1981 said:

When i add the new 12TB as Parity #1 will it force another Pre Clear?

When you assign the new disk as Parity1 and start the array Unraid will start building parity onto it. It will take several hours to complete but the array will be on-line.

 

3 hours ago, leeknight1981 said:

is it ok to leave Parity #2 in while it rebuilds as its only 8TB 

Yes. The two parity disks do not have to have the same capacity. The only restriction is that neither can be smaller than the largest data disk.

So, if you intend to use 12 TB data disks in the future you will need to replace Parity2 first.