I'm building a new server (reusing existing drives) and want to start with a completely fresh unraid install and reformat drives to XFS.

 

Is it possible to mount a USB drive to my old server and copy all of my data to it then use it to put the data onto the new array? If so, what's the best way to go about this? Thanks in advance!

There is a plug-in called "Unassigned Devices"  That will allow you to mount a unassigned drive on an unRAID server.    There are a several ways you could use this. 

 

First, would be as you propose, to  copy the files to an USB device on one server and then copy the files to the new server.  (This might not be any faster than copying the files across your network.)

 

Second, you could remove each data drive from the old server and then mount it (using Unassigned Devices) to your new server.  You could either install the drive directly inside of the case or in a USB enclosure (preferably a USB3 one) . 

 

If you are planning on re-purposing your old drives in the new server, you might want to look through the thread on file system conversion.  While it is not directly applicable to your situation, it might provide you with some insight into possible approaches.  You can find it here:

 

https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/54769-format-xfs-on-replacement-drive-convert-from-rfs-to-xfs/

 

Edited September 16, 20178 yr by Frank1940

Frank1940, thank you so much for your reply. I've been moving data successfully with your help.

what does the general process look like? I recall on each disk there folders that contain pieces of User Shares. When I access a normal unRaid server, all the various sources are combined into one folder.

 

So, you power the new server down, plug in the old drive, browse the old drive using Unassigned Devices, and Merge the contents with the old drive into the User Shares?

 

How much faster is that than gigabit ethernet?

@dkerlee What the Unassigned Devices plugin does to mount the drive to the unRAID server so that you can access the files on the mounted drive.  (Think of it as plugging in a UBS drive with a Windows (Or even a Mac) computer.)  You can then copy the data off (or onto) the mounted drive to (or from) the array.   If you have a drive with data on it that you want to add to a share on the array, you would mount the device with Unassigned Devices and copy the files off of the drive to the share where you want them.  (This can be much faster than doing a copy across a Gb network.)

 

If you have drives that are formatted with reiserfs, xfs or btrfs, you can incorporate those drives into the array using the 'New Config' utility found on the 'Tools' page.  (Be sure you understand what you are doing if you try this...)

 

Hope this helps...