Just checking in here for a sanity check before swapping out a 500 gig drive and swapping in a 2 TB drive to replace it.

The 500 gig drive is part of my unRAID, and currently it has no data contents on it.  It's alive and well and all, I just haven't stored anything on it.

 

I have another use for the 500 gig drive in a different computer, and I have a brand new 2TB drive ready to take its place in the unRAID.  Seeing as the drive has no data on it, what are my best choices for replacing it with the 2TB drive?

 

-Unattach the 500 gig, swap drives, attach the 2 TB to the unRAID, and calculate new parity?

 

[i know not to click "RESTORE" in the version that has that.]

 

Just checking as a safety check before I open up the unRAID again.

 

-printingdude

Just happened to pass by, and I'll reply - since none of the "heavy weights" is around for the moment. Your parity drive needs to be equal to or greater then the largest drive in the array. If you want to have a 2TB hdd in the array you have to start replacing the parity drive with a 2TB, and then install a second, data drive, of the same size. Replacing a hdd is fairly simple. Take it out, and plug the new one in. Go into the devices menu and assign the new drive to replace the old drive. I believe you have to push another button to ack for the fact that the array will take over it and format it/owerwrite etc.

 

hg

 

I want to first thank you for your answer, but it isn't really getting to what I'm asking.

I already have a working unRAID with six drives including a 2TB parity drive, so I don't need to do any parity drive prep-work.  I know how to physically swap drives.

 

What I'm concerned about is whether or not I'll need to recalculate parity.  

I'm seeing at least two possible ways to deal with adding the 2TB drive.

Ordinarily, I could yank the 500 GB out, let unRAID think my drive failed, then swap in the 2TB drive and assign it to the same drive slot in unRAID that the 500 GB was in.  unRAID could then make use of parity and the other drives to "rebuild" the contents of what was on the 500 GB drive, on its 2TB replacement drive.  (and somehow manage to let it know that it's now a 2TB drive instead of a 500GB drive.)

 

But since I have no data stored on the 500 GB drive, that sounds like a plan that probably isn't necessary.  Perhaps I can just unassign the 500 GB drive entirely, swap the 2TB drive for it, and treat it as a new drive, assigning it to the same disk slot in unRAID.  Again, I wonder if I still need to recalculate parity.

 

I want to know if there are steps that will maintain parity protection throughout the process, or if at any point I will not have parity protection while I calculate a new parity for the new drive, and whether a parity-protecting process will be far more slower than a parity-not-protected process.

 

I cant locate the post/topic where Joe L and others listed the steps for replacing a blank drive with a larger one while maintaining parity information. I sort of remember part of the step was to write 0's to the drive while it's still in the array, then remove the drive, then replace with larger pre-cleared drive. I don't think at any time that parity was recalculated.

 

Sorry I couldn't be of much help, but I just can't find the exact post.

I'm not sure if this is still relevant: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2591.msg20919#msg20919

 

 

Power down

Replace the 500Gig drive with the 2TB drive

Power up

Press Start.  (You probably will not have to assign the new-drive, since unRAID will detect it that it is on the same controller port the 500Gig was.  If it is on a different port, you will need to use the Devices page to assign it.)

 

Wait for the 500Gig rive to be re-constructed onto the 2TB drive.

 

You are done.  No need to calculate parity, although you can certainly "check" parity.  In fact, you should, since you've just written the 2TB drive, but not yet attempted to read what you've written.  A parity check will verify you can read the drive.

 

If you have the option, and the time, I'd first run the preclear_disk.sh script on the 2TB drive, before you use it to replace the 500Gig drive. (Assuming you have a spare port on your disk controller)

 

The pre-clearing will not speed up the re-construction, but it will exercise the 2TB drive and weed out any early mechanical failures or un-readable sectors.

 

Joe L.

Thanks Joe, and I was in error when I said I have 6 drives (including the parity drive) in my unRAID, I have 5, so I can do the preclear on the new 2TB drive.

 

–So I'll do that.

 

Thanks again!

 

FWIW, I have that 4.5.3 "unformatted for all drives" problem.  I know about it, so it doesn't bite me, but I'd like to upgrade to the latest 4.5.6.  Do I recall reading that I can do this by just replacing a couple of files on the flash drive?

Yes.

 

Ah.  bzimage, bzroot.

 

Got it.

 

Quick followup:  All went well.  500 gig drive swapped out for 2TB drive, rebuild went smoothly.  Upgrade to unRAID 4.5.6 also smooth.