I am running unRaid 4.5 using a Norco 4220 that is full. I would like to upgrade the 6 smallest drives to 2tb so all drives match in size. What would be the best path for doing such an upgrade? I know doing 1 by 1 will take about 3 days each due to the parity rebuild and I don't want to spend the next 20 days running a parity check.

 

Thanks

This assumes the contents of your 2 smallest drives are less than 2TB when their contents are combined together, and that your server is FULL and you have NO more slots or SATA ports.

 

Note this method leaves you without parity protection for the duration.... but if you want to save time, that's what you have to do.

 

- preclear all your new 2TB drives

- Replace the smallest drive with a new 2TB, and let it rebuild.

- disable parity

- then COPY files from the next smallest old drive to the new 2TB, and remove the old drive and replace it with another new 2TB

- continue copying from the old drives being replaced to the new 2TB drives, and add more 2TB drives as you remove old smaller drives.

 

After all smaller drives have been copied to new 2TB drives, re-enable parity, and recalc parity.

 

What if you did one drive, then used rsync to bring over the other smaller drives onto the new 2TB drive?

Maybe use an extra unraid server and copy data from one server to the other then stick the disks back in the main one and use initconfig or whatever the command is to default the array.  Only one parity build that way.  Assuming that would work anyway

I was just going to post pretty much what bubbaQ and WeeboTech already said.

 

The question becomes what size are your smallest drives, as that limits what the usable solutions are.

Maybe use an extra unraid server and copy data from one server to the other then stick the disks back in the main one and use initconfig or whatever the command is to default the array.  Only one parity build that way.  Assuming that would work anyway

 

That's a pretty good idea too.

 

Especially considering that there will be a lengthy preclear.

There are of course other options, but I limited my suggestions to the facts stated in the OP.

 

It could be done differently so as to minimize the time when parity protection is disabled -- but that would greatly increase the time needed to get to the endpoint.  The OP said he wanted to minimize time.

 

If the 6 drives are all 1TB and full, that means 6 TB has to be written to new drives  The largest drive is 2TB, so the endpoints are EITHER at least one full 2TB parity calc has to take place after 6TB of un-protected writes, or else you have to have 6TB of parity protected writes.  The former is much faster.

 

If the OP could consolidate data and free up 1 slot for a new drive, or if he has an unused SATA port available, then that would open up other options.

Some of us thought outside the bun(OP) LOL. <just being silly>

All drives that I am upgrading are 1.5tb so there is little room to spare. I am just getting started on my second 4220 build (case came in this week) so I guess I will do the upgrades when I split the drives for the two systems. I will be moving 7 drives from this server to the new server so I will have the room to move data to new drives then.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.