Upgrade first then replace drive, or vice versa

[kimnach]

My unraid NAS has been running for roughly 5yrs, and recently one of the 2TB drives has begun to exhibit numerous errors.  (I actually discovered this because the NIC has been slowing down to a crawl when copying files over to it, and upon connecting to the web gui I discovered the errors.  So I ordered a new NIC which will replace the aging Intel GB NIC.)

 

While the initial anxiety of losing data (all of the kids' pictures and family videos over the past 17yrs are of most concern) tends to make me think that I should first swap the drive and then do an upgrade to v6; I wonder if, however, upgrading first would make the swap easier in any way?

 

My unraid machine is currently powered down, after having done a parity check.  I will be getting two new drives to replace the failing one and to upgrade the system capacity.

 

(Really" the answer to "The Dark ?" is not "Side"?  In which galaxy is this wrong?)

 

greg

[trurl]

...(all of the kids' pictures and family videos over the past 17yrs are of most concern)...

The absolute first thing you should do before even considering any other course of action is make a backup plan. unRAID parity is never a substitute for having backups. You MUST have at least one more copy of any files you don't want to lose on another system.

 

Stop using your unRAID for anything other than making those backup copies, then when you have done that we can discuss how to proceed.

[tdallen]

Edit... Oops, cross posted with trurl so deleting my post.

[trurl]

If you truly have irreplaceable files that are not backed up then make a backup copy of them even before you replace any disks. Since we don't really know how bad any of your disks are a rebuild may not be successful. After you make your backup copies of those irreplaceable files, post your syslog and SMART attributes of all of your disks.