Hi,

 

I just brought a Hitachi 2TB 7200rpm drive and I am running the preclear script right now. Assuming the drive is OK. What are the proper steps to replace the parity drive then use the parity drive as my new data disk? Currently, I have the WD 2TB EADS as my parity drive. I did read the user manual but there's no proper steps in there.

 

Should I do the following?

1. Stop Array

2. Unassign the parity slot

3. Assign Hitachi to parity slot

4. Assign WD 2TB to a new disk slot

5. Start Array

6. Format WD 2TB the new disk

7. Start Parity Check

 

or

 

1. Stop Array

2. Unassign the parity slot

3. Assign Hitachi to parity slot

4. Start Array

5. Start Parity Check

6. After Parity Check completed then Stop Array

7. Assign WD 2TB to a new disk slot

8. Start Array

9. Format WD 2TB

 

thanks,

~joy

 

FAQ 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#Is_it_possible_to_migrate_the_parity_disk_from_one_drive_to_another_to_increase_the_maximum_drive_size_in_an_unRaid_array.3F

 

First link will get you this:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2280.0

Both work about equally. You could use the second version so you're doing one step at a time if that makes you feel more confident. Personally, I kept the old parity "offline" until the new disk was installed and confirmed working. This would add some new steps;

 

1. Stop Array

2. Unassign the parity slot

3. Assign Hitachi to parity slot

4. Start Array

5. Start Parity Build

6. After Parity Build, perform a parity check

7. When Parity Check completes with no errors Stop array

8. Assign WD 2TB to a new disk slot

9. Start Array, clearing and formatting the WD 2TB

 

If something goes wrong, you can use the "trust my parity" procedure to recover, using the original parity drive.

 

Peter

Both work about equally. You could use the second version so you're doing one step at a time if that makes you feel more confident. Personally, I kept the old parity "offline" until the new disk was installed and confirmed working. This would add some new steps;

 

1. Stop Array

2. Unassign the parity slot

3. Assign Hitachi to parity slot

4. Start Array

5. Start Parity Build

6. After Parity Build, perform a parity check

7. When Parity Check completes with no errors Stop array

8. Assign WD 2TB to a new disk slot

9. Start Array, clearing and formatting the WD 2TB

 

If something goes wrong, you can use the "trust my parity" procedure to recover, using the original parity drive.

 

Peter

I'd add a few more steps

. Stop Array

2. Unassign the parity slot

3. Assign Hitachi to parity slot

4. Start Array

5. Start Parity Build

6. After Parity Build, perform a parity check

6A After parity build, perform a pre-clear of the old parity disk.  It will prevent hours of down-time as unRAID clears it for you.

7. When Parity Check completes with no errors Stop array

8. Assign WD 2TB to a new disk slot

9. Start Array, clearing and formatting the WD 2TB

If the newly pre-cleared drive is the ONLY drive showing as un-formatted, press the "Format" button. If not, stop and re-start the array until it is the only disk showing as un-formatted.

 

 

Personally, I kept the old parity "offline" until the new disk was installed and confirmed working. This would add some new steps;

 

 

Good point. I haven't thought of that. thx

 

6A After parity build, perform a pre-clear of the old parity disk.  It will prevent hours of down-time as unRAID clears it for you.

 

If the newly pre-cleared drive is the ONLY drive showing as un-formatted, press the "Format" button. If not, stop and re-start the array until it is the only disk showing as un-formatted.

 

 

Thank you. I will make sure I'll do a preclear on old parity first. As for the format button, it's scary. I saw the format button shows up when I was stopping the array to put in my new 2TB Hitachi. I think one of the disk was busy and can't be stopped. I have to telnet in and execute the following steps but it still complaints disk9 is busy until I kill my PS3MediaServer process.

 

cd

killall smbd nmbd

sync

umount disk9