Replace Disable Emulated Drive ?

[afc]

Hi I am running Unraid 6.3.5 with 3 3TB drives a 3TB parity and 500B cache, and on friday I got an error and a disk was disable!! I did a fast smart check and the result was no erros!!  So I open the computer and check cables and connections, then I tried to replace the drive with the same by  reassign it by deassign it an assign it after a array stop.  It start to rebuilding the drive but after 60% I got read erros!! So ok not big deal!! this is a 6 year old drive time to change it!  

My question is about replacing the disable drive!! I currently have 2 6TB and 2 8TB drives to be used as replacements drives!!

I know that I cant replace the disable drive with a larger one!!  But what I need to do to replace the Parity Drive and don't lose data while I have a disable drive that it is emulated?  My Goal is to replace the Parity with a 8TB drive and replace the disable drive with another 8TB and replace another 3TB with a 6TB?? Also in the process I would like to change all my drives from reiserfs to XFS(the drives are from a original Unraid 5 build and upgraded to 6) What I nned to to to be able to accomplish this?

 

Any help with this would be very appreciated!!!  I had this Unraid server running since 2012 and this is my first problem!! and it just a old bad disk!! very impressed with the sytem!! I have accesses to all my files but there are emulated!!

 

[JonathanM]

Honestly, if you can wrangle the extra hardware temporarily it would be MUCH easier and safer for your data to stand up a temporary extra server with the new drives formatted as XFS, copy the data over the network, and then when you have everything copied, move the new drives back into their permanent home. You could set up a free trial USB stick for the duration of the copy.

 

Alternatively, you could temporarily remove the cache disk, install one of the 8TB's as cache, format it as XFS, and set your shares to cache:prefer and start the mover. That would move as much data as will fit on the 8TB without using extra hardware. If you have all 3 current data drives full, then it won't all fit, but you could remove that drive and replace it with one of the 6TB's and finish the move. After all your data is on the new XFS drives, set a new config with only the XFS drives, verify all your data is there, then add the last 8TB as parity and let it build.

 

Maybe somebody else will have a brilliant idea on how to get the whole process done in the least amount of steps, but since you currently have a disabled ReiserFS drive, the normal documented steps to do this whole process seem to me to be overly repetitive.

 

Normally you would follow parity swap procedure, followed by adding the 2nd 8TB as a XFS data drive and start the data copy procedure. Personally I think it would be safer for your data to leave the current server intact until the data is copied to the new drives.

[afc]

Ok so I just Got a replacement 3 TB disk to put it in the array to replace the disabled disk!! So my Plan is to rebuild the current 3TB with a new 3TB disk, then upgrade the parity to the a new 8TB.  So my question now is How Do I replace the disks with a new 8TB and a new 6TB and copy all the data these drives and migrate from reiserfs to XFS?  I am currently using 3 3TB disk in reiserfs and almost full!! the array is 90% full. With the new configuration I will have a 8TB parity drive, one 8TB and one 6TB for the array plus the same cache disk I am using that is 500GB.  Thanks!!

[Frank1940]

What I would do is this.

 

1--- Preclear the new 2 X 8TB and 6TB drives.

 

2---  Run a parity check on the current array and make sure that there are no errors.  Repeat until this condition is not met.  (If you do this twice and that is still an error, you probably want to stop and ask some questions at that point.

 

3---  Print out the Main Page of of the GUI with all of the serial numbers of your current data drives.

 

4--- Stop the Array and copy the contents of your unRAID boot drive into a folder on another computer.  (Just in case...)

 

5--- Physically remove the current parity and data drives.   Set carefully aside for now.  Install the new 8TB and 6TB drives. 

 

6--- Start the array (All of the old drives will show up as missing), Stop the array.  Now assign the new disks.  (Unassign any old disks if necessary...)

 

7---  Go to      'Tools'   >>>  'New Config'     and follow the instructions.  The data disks will be formatted and your new array should be available in a few  minutes.  Make sure that they are formatted as XFS. 

 

8--- Install the 'Unassigned Devices' plugin.  Now you can install the old data disks (one at a time physically in the server or use a UBS housing and 'mount' them using the unassigned devices plugin.  Copy the files over to the array. 

 

The advantage to doing it this way is that you will never be doing anything with your current data disks.  This will reduce the likelihood of anything going wrong.  (The conversion from resierfs to XFS can be a bit confusing and requires a lot more planning and care in execution.)

[trurl]

I agree with Frank1940. For your case, since you intend to replace all the drives anyway, and you don't have many drives to start with, simply starting over with the new drives and copying the data from the old drives will be much simpler and safer than any "conversion" procedure.