I have successfully dealt with a host of recent issues in my 20-drive system. I’ve bumped my parity drive up to 8TB from 6TB and I have moved the data off three of my smaller drives onto a couple of my larger drives (currently I have a mix of data drives ranging from 1.5TB to 6TB, with ten 3TB in the middle). The plan is to remove those three older (and now empty) drives and replace them all with 8TB drives (preferably XFS-formatted).

 

Before I do something really stupid, I’d like to review the process. I have never “shrunk” my array in the ten years I’ve had it; I’ve only added drives.

 

1) Power down and remove the three smaller drives (again, to be clear, I have emptied these drives of all data).

 

2) Power up and those drives will now be (I think) reported as missing, and the array will not have started.

 

3) In the Tools tab, run New Config. This essentially tells Unraid that the missing disks are intentionally missing and that everything is okay, right?

 

4) Rebuild the parity (I think this will probably begin automatically?)

 

5) After parity has completed, power down and add the three new drives.

 

6) Power up, assign the new drives, and start the array. The new 8TB drives will be added after they are cleared and XFS-formatted. This will take several (many?) hours. 

 

Is all that correct? Thanks!

Edited April 12, 20188 yr by lungnut

When doing the new config you can add the 3 new drives at that point, this way you'll avoid the clearing process, but either way will work.

 

Also when doing the new config make sure you select Retain current configuration: All to avoid re-assigning the old disks.

With three brand new drives, I’m thinking it’s better to clear them. I’m not in any big rush, so I don’t mind spending the time.

 

As for the new config setting, thanks so much. This is exactly why I made the post.

1 minute ago, lungnut said:

With three brand new drives, I’m thinking it’s better to clear them. I’m not in any big rush, so I don’t mind spending the time.

That's good, but remember to run a parity check immediately after they are cleared as disks are much more likely to error on reads than writes.

1 minute ago, johnnie.black said:

disks are much more likely to error on reads than writes.

 

Interesting—wouldn’t have guessed this. I will definitely run a parity check after adding the drives. Thanks!

Did everything go well? Because of I also want to remove a smaller (empty disk) to replace it with a bigger one.

Hi, CreZo---everything went flawlessly. 

 

Good luck!