I have been wanting to change out my disk 1 in my array for a smaller one to keep my cloud files on and other personal files instead of keeping them scattered across all drives in the array. So instead of having to add another 8tb drive and move all of disk 1 to that new disk is there anyway to move that disks position in the array?

 

This would also be helpful for when I add new disks to my array that are larger than my previous disk and I want them to be in order from largest to smallest.

 

I realize that I could just add a drive to the array but my OCD likes them to be in order, kinda of.

 

 

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If you only have one parity, then you can go to Tools - New Config and set a new configuration by assigning all your disks in whatever order you want, then when you go to Start the array, check the box that says parity is already valid. Make note of each drives serial number and be extremely careful when assigning the disks. If you accidentally assign a data disk to the parity slot it will get overwritten with parity.

Thanks!!! This will make things so much easier. Can you not do this with two parity drives and retain parity because of the way it calculates parity with two drives?

 

 

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With dual parity it's different, parity (P) will remain valid but parity2 (Q) will not.

 

The simplest way to do what you want is just do a New Config and order the drive assignments exactly like you want.  You can do this anytime, with either single or dual parity.

 

The disadvantage of this is that you'll be running "at risk" (i.e. not fault-tolerant) anytime you do the New Config until the initial parity sync is completed.  Because of this, be sure you always do a parity check BEFORE making the changes -- and confirm that everything is good before you do it (i.e. no disk errors and no sync errors during the parity check).

 

Thanks!!! This will make things so much easier. Can you not do this with two parity drives and retain parity because of the way it calculates parity with two drives?

as was mentioned Dual Parity does not remain valid if you change disk positions.    The safest approach would be to do the New Config and assign the drives as you want EXCEPT for parity2 which at this point you leave unassigned.  You can now tick the Parity is valid' box and start the array as parity1 remains valid since it is independent of disk position.  At this point you are still protected against a single disk failure.    You can now stop the array and assign parity2.    When you start the array unRAID will now create the new parity2 contents that correspond to the current disk positions, and when that completes you are back to being protected against two drives failing at the same time.