I have two 2TB hard drives that have no data on them. That's 4GB of space that's not in use. The first of the two drives probably won't see any action for another 3 months or so. The second 2TB drive will probably remain empty and useless for at least a year or more.

 

They're both alive in the array and usually spinned down. Since they're not of any use for now, should I remove them from the computer case altogether until I need them? I'm thinking that having these hard drives see no activity, especially the latter one, for such a long time could result in unnecessary wear and tear. If the second hard drive isn't going to see any action for nearly a year, am I harming it by leaving it in the case doing nothing?

 

A hard drive's life expectancy is only for so long, and I'm just chipping away at both of them for no reason. It feels like parking a car in the driveway and leaving the engine on overnight.

It won't hurt if they are there unused. Every now and then they will spin up (reboot) and then spin down (unraid).

What increases is the power on hours, which seems to be used as a value in indicating age.

If these drives are unused in the array and a year off from being used, I would take one out of the array in software.

I would probably re-deploy it elsewhere retiring an older drive or pull the power out and just keep it as a local spare.

It can be in the machine, just in a no power state and not configured in unRAID.

The one which may begin to be used in 3 months, I would leave in place.

 

I often have one drive configured in unRAID in software and with no data, ready to grow, or ready to move data if a drive fails.

I usually have another that I keep out of the unRAID configuration.

This way if a drive fails, I do a swap and rebuild onto the new drive. if the drive that failed happens to be critical, I'll usually rsync it to the one drive that has space (or to other drives that have space, just to be safe).

You should always have a spare ready to go in case one drive fails. That way you don't have to wait for the manufacturer to send you out a new one. You can pop the spare in and then do your regular exchange. That's what I have for my NAS and in my unRaid too. I have one spare of the biggest drive size inside the server.

 

George

You should always have a spare ready to go in case one drive fails. That way you don't have to wait for the manufacturer to send you out a new one. You can pop the spare in and then do your regular exchange. That's what I have for my NAS and in my unRaid too. I have one spare of the biggest drive size inside the server.

 

George

 

is it part of the array?

is it outside the array waiting to replace a drive?

if outside the array, have you precleared the drive?

You should always have a spare ready to go in case one drive fails. That way you don't have to wait for the manufacturer to send you out a new one. You can pop the spare in and then do your regular exchange. That's what I have for my NAS and in my unRaid too. I have one spare of the biggest drive size inside the server.

 

George

 

is it part of the array?

is it outside the array waiting to replace a drive?

if outside the array, have you precleared the drive?

 

I can answer these since I built guiri's server  

 

Guiri is using a 2 TB (WD EARS Green w/ jumper) as a warm spare.  It is assigned to the 'cache disk' slot in unRAID, but the cache disk is disabled on every user share and the mover is basically disabled as well (see this thread).  I figure I'll have guiri employ your 'feb-31st' trick at some point, but it isn't important at the moment.  The drive is precleared, as is every other drive in his server (only 1 pass, though - each pass on the 2 TB EARS takes about 35 hours so I didn't have time to do more than that).

 

I chose to assign this warm spare to the cache disk slot so that it wouldn't show up in the drop down menu when guiri adds new disks to his array.  That way he never has to worry about matching up serial numbers or anything like that (as long as he adds just one new drive at a time).  If he ever needs to employ the warm spare to replace a failed drive, he just has to unassign it from the cache slot and assign it to the failed drive's slot.  The extra step is trivial, but I feel the benefit is worthwhile.

Yeah, what he said...   

Oh, and just to be clear, I have no clue what the hell he just said...   

 

The server is pretty though   

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

There's been mention of "spares". Local spares. Warm spares. The extra 2TB disk I speak of is an active part of the array. It's gone through the 8 hour "clearing" process.

 

Let's say I stopped the array, unassigned the drive, then removed it from the case. One month later I experience a hard disk failure. I swap out the bad disk with the already cleared drive I previously removed. Would unraid rebuild the failed disk from parity using this already cleared drive from a month prior? In other words, must a drive be cleared before parity can do its rebuild work, or does a replacement drive have to be fresh, untouched, and in a non-cleared state?

The drive does not have to be precleared, but it's a good thing to do so you're certain the replacement drive isn't bad as well and wont die in the middle of the rebuild.

Raj,

 

I think I am going to use the Warm Spare idea you documented here. I was originally thinking of using one of the two drives coming to me as a Cache drive.  But I don't really think I'll need it as such after I move the bulk of my data to the unRaid.  I see how this would put less "wear and tear" on the drive than leaving as a Hot Cache drive. 

 

Thanks,

 

You should always have a spare ready to go in case one drive fails. That way you don't have to wait for the manufacturer to send you out a new one. You can pop the spare in and then do your regular exchange. That's what I have for my NAS and in my unRaid too. I have one spare of the biggest drive size inside the server.

 

George

 

is it part of the array?

is it outside the array waiting to replace a drive?

if outside the array, have you precleared the drive?

 

I can answer these since I built guiri's server  

 

Guiri is using a 2 TB (WD EARS Green w/ jumper) as a warm spare.  It is assigned to the 'cache disk' slot in unRAID, but the cache disk is disabled on every user share and the mover is basically disabled as well (see this thread).  I figure I'll have guiri employ your 'feb-31st' trick at some point, but it isn't important at the moment.  The drive is precleared, as is every other drive in his server (only 1 pass, though - each pass on the 2 TB EARS takes about 35 hours so I didn't have time to do more than that).

 

I chose to assign this warm spare to the cache disk slot so that it wouldn't show up in the drop down menu when guiri adds new disks to his array.  That way he never has to worry about matching up serial numbers or anything like that (as long as he adds just one new drive at a time).  If he ever needs to employ the warm spare to replace a failed drive, he just has to unassign it from the cache slot and assign it to the failed drive's slot.  The extra step is trivial, but I feel the benefit is worthwhile.

Sounds good, storagehound.  Plus, there's no reason you can't use it as both - use the new drive as a regular cache drive as you transfer data, then once the transfer is complete, disable the cache drive on all your shares and voila - it is now a warm spare.

 

Paperclip: When unRAID rebuilds data onto a replacement drive, it rebuilds everything bit for bit (including the file system).  So the drive does not need to be cleared by unRAID first.  The can be brand new, directly out of the box.  However, as BRiT mentioned, it isn't a bad idea to pre-clear or otherwise burn in a replacement drive so that you know it is trustworthy.