November 17, 20178 yr I am currently building my first unRAID system and I need a little help with what is the best practice to move my data to that new NAS system So right now I've got the following drives in the system which are getting pre cleared at the moment 1x 120GB SSD 3x Seagate Iron Wolf 6TB All drives are connected to my Dell Perc H310 (LSI 9240-8i crossflashed to 9211-8i IT-Mode) - should I connect the SSD to a SATA port of my mainboard instead since it's going to be my cache drive? Now, my plan is to setup the unRAID array and then move my data from the old NAS to unRAID. After I moved my data to unRAID I want to move my 2x 6TB drives from the old NAS to unRAID. So how should I do that? Here is what I though I should do (please correct me if I am wrong): wait for the preclear to finish create a new array in unRAID setup shares etc. in unRAID move files from my old NAS to unRAID install the old HDDs in my unRAID box and preclear them add the old HDDs to the unRAID array add the SSD as cache to the unRAID array (I am not sure if I should to that before I start moving data to the array or if I should do that last!?) Thanks in advance!
November 17, 20178 yr You are on the right track, however here is a trick. Typically when you create an array you choose a drive to be your parity drive, unRAID then creates parity on this drive and that can take hours. In your case create the array without a parity drive and copy your data over. When that is done, pre clear the other two drives and when they are done, install them and make one of them your parity drive, at this point, unRAID will create the parity data based on the data you have now copied over. At this point you can also add the SSD as a cache drive too. Good luck!
November 17, 20178 yr Author 1 hour ago, ashman70 said: Typically when you create an array you choose a drive to be your parity drive, unRAID then creates parity on this drive and that can take hours. Thanks your your reply! I might be wrong (most likely), but I thought that when I preclear the drives then parity creation is much faster when I create the array. Or is that only when I add a new drive to an existing array? Edited November 17, 20178 yr by cholzer
November 17, 20178 yr Pre clearing has nothing to do with parity, it's simply a way for you to stress test the drive so make sure it's not DOA. Adding a new drive does not make parity any faster either.
November 17, 20178 yr Author Found it. So this guy is wrong then? He says that preclearing my drivers saves me time when expanding my array (adding more drives).https://youtu.be/csGYrd5G0ik?t=2m19s
November 17, 20178 yr 1 minute ago, cholzer said: He says that preclearing my drivers saves me time when expanding my array (adding more drives). If you add a pre-cleared drive it will be added to the array more or less instantaneously instead of cleared in the background and then added.
November 17, 20178 yr Author 1 minute ago, gubbgnutten said: If you add a pre-cleared drive it will be added to the array more or less instantaneously instead of cleared in the background and then added. Does this also apply to creating a new array out of precleared drives? Or does it only apply to expanding an array?
November 17, 20178 yr 1 minute ago, cholzer said: Does this also apply to creating a new array out of precleared drives? Or does it only apply to expanding an array? Unfortunately only applies to expansion as far as I know.
November 17, 20178 yr Author 1 minute ago, gubbgnutten said: Unfortunately only applies to expansion as far as I know. That is indeed unfortunate, but thanks for the info!
November 17, 20178 yr 5 hours ago, cholzer said: Here is what I though I should do (please correct me if I am wrong): wait for the preclear to finish create a new array in unRAID setup shares etc. in unRAID move files from my old NAS to unRAID install the old HDDs in my unRAID box and preclear them add the old HDDs to the unRAID array add the SSD as cache to the unRAID array (I am not sure if I should to that before I start moving data to the array or if I should do that last!?) Not saying you're wrong, just some thoughts about what I would do in a similar situation: :-) Is your old NAS fast or slow? If it is slow, I would have step 2 create a new array with parity. If it is fast, I would add the parity after step 4. For step 4, I would copy the files rather than move them, and when parity is in place verify that all files were written correctly. I usually have checksums for static files, so for me it is quite straightforward to verify files. Yes, I am quite paranoid... Edited November 17, 20178 yr by gubbgnutten Strikeout...
November 17, 20178 yr Long ago Pre-Clearing before putting the drive into your system would set a flag telling the system that the drive was cleared and would be brought into the array without keeping the array from coming up. When I say keeping the array from coming up I mean it took a pretty good amount of time. Lol Now with the way unRAID is done the array is down briefly while it formats the drive and does some kind of pesuo pre-clear, but it is no way as good as the pre-clear. Some swear by Pre-clearing to check for errors and some don't. its your Data and from my experience I've had 2 Drives give me issues during the Pre-clear out of 12 so far.
November 17, 20178 yr 15 minutes ago, kizer said: Now with the way unRAID is done the array is down briefly while it formats the drive and does some kind of pesuo pre-clear, but it is no way as good as the pre-clear. It does a clear, simple as that. The drive needs to be all zeros to be added to a parity protected array. The difference is that nowadays it is cleared in the background, while older versions kept the array offline until the clear was completed. A pre-cleared drive can be formatted and used really really soon after adding it (since it is already cleared).
November 20, 20178 yr Author So pre-clear finished on all my drives and I was about to start the array when I saw this checkbox. " Parity is already valid. " I supposed I can check that as all my drives have been pre cleared and zero'ed ? Edited November 20, 20178 yr by cholzer
November 20, 20178 yr Community Expert 23 minutes ago, cholzer said: I supposed I can check that as all my drives have been pre cleared and zero'ed ? If all disks are cleared yes you can.
November 20, 20178 yr Author Just now, johnnie.black said: If all disks are cleared yes you can. Yup, I did run pre-clear on all 6TB disks, including the one that is now the parity disk.
November 21, 20178 yr Author Everything looking good so far, copying my data onto the array now! I do have a question though, why does unRAID say that there 6.6Gb used on these 2 disks when there are no files on them?
November 21, 20178 yr Community Expert 3 minutes ago, cholzer said: why does unRAID say that there 6.6Gb used on these 2 disks when there are no files on them? It's the normal filesystem overhead for xfs, about 1GB per TB.
November 21, 20178 yr Author 1 minute ago, johnnie.black said: It's the normal filesystem overhead for xfs, about 1GB per TB. Thank you!
November 23, 20178 yr Author I want to thank all of you for your help on my journey to get unRAID up and running! Your support was awesome! =) All my files are on the array, parity has been created, cache disk is up and running, mover is working, email notifications are working, UPS connected and working, ...... I think I am done! Only thing left to do is make a backup of my unRAID config. Guess best practice is to: shut the unRAID system down plug the USB flash drive into my PC and create an ISO of that USB flash drive?
November 23, 20178 yr Community Expert You can just copy your flash share, that's the flash drive, best to do it with the array stopped though.
November 23, 20178 yr Author 1 hour ago, johnnie.black said: You can just copy your flash share, that's the flash drive, best to do it with the array stopped though. Stopped the array copied the contents of the /flash share created a zip and stored it on my backup drive & cloud So should my current USB flash drive die, then I would create a new one with the tool and then copy back the contents of my backup and overwrite all files on the new USB flash drive, right?
November 23, 20178 yr Community Expert Just now, cholzer said: So should my current USB flash drive die, then I would create a new one with the tool and then copy back the contents of my backup and overwrite all files on the new USB flash drive, right? Yes, if you make a new one you just need to restore the config folder, then do the key replacement procedure. It's good practice to make a new backup every time there's a disk change (new or replaced) in the array.
November 23, 20178 yr Author Just now, johnnie.black said: It's good practice to make a new backup every time there's a disk change (new or replaced) in the array. I thought so too, thanks!
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