Hello

 

I'm currently running 7x 4TB disk a single 4TB parity. This weekend I want to bring in my 2TB disks and add one of the 7 4TB disks as a 2nd parity.

 

What is the quickest way to get that done? (Not have to rebuild the system as I'll remove a data disk...)

 

Thanks for your help

If there is data you care about on the drive, recommend doing what I'm working on currently. Run a non-correcting parity check and make sure you have no errors. Identify your "newest" disk by looking at smart hours running. Then use MC (midnight commander or some other tool) to move data off the disk you identified to another disk by doing a disk to disk move. NEVER go disk to share or share to disk as the system can lose data that way. (IE folder /mnt/disk1/share1 to /mnt/disk3/share1 and step data over.) Once your data is off the disk you identified, shutdown your array and pull your disk. (This can be done before you add the 2TB drive). Power on your unraid, then as the drive is missing go to the GUI and identify the parity drive, take a pic of your screen if you need. Then go to tools and choose new config. What this does is clear the assignments and the reason you identify the parity as it doesn't have a file system so you assign it again as parity. This also allows you to reorder your disks as well, should you have different sizes. Now at this point you can assign parity and do a parity rebuild leaving the 4tb you pulled out of the array JUST in case something borks. Once parity finishes run another non-correcting and verify its at 0 errors. Check to make sure your data looks "good". Then stop your array and assign your old 4tb as  2nd parity, and add your 2TB drive(s).

 

This process assumes you have enough free space on other drives to absorb the data from the drive you pulled. If that isn't the case where I say "this can be done before adding 2TB drives" add the 2TB drives at this point instead and move data around to the new drives. Assuming they are pre-cleared for ease. 

Edited March 2, 20179 yr by phbigred
Typo

Might as well go ahead and add parity2 when you new config and then you can build parity2 at the same time you are building parity1.

True enough Turl I was thinking for the "oh crap" I didn't copy something factor. 

Thanks for your input, sadly I wont have enough space for that. Any neat idea to get it done?

So are these 2TB disks you already own that you want to add to new data slots? Do they have any data on them?

Or if you don't care about the data, preclear them and bring them in and move your data to them. (Or whatever they are in now see if you can whittle down the disk footprint to free up 2 disks.) Otherwise as my storage team calls it, a massive game of Tetris will ensue. Hell even if you have an external drive or 2 just to give wiggle room. Get creative, unraid can mount unassigned drives with the unassigned drive plugin. Granted data will be temporarily unprotected but it's an idea. Just weigh the risk/reward and move forward with your plan.