April 26, 20188 yr For consideration: A competitor, Synology, has a feature I don't think has been requested (didn't see it; didn't find it in search) here, but would be a good fit. The hot-spare drive, a pre-cleared, spun down drive; if/when a major drive hard drive failure occurs bad disk is dropped from drive aray, the hot-spare is assigned it's place, and appropriate notifications tripped. Certainly be a handy option for any remote backup setups. Obvious requirement, the hot-spare must equal size (perhaps >=) of parity drive.
April 26, 20188 yr The hot spare must be no larger than (<=) parity, unless you want to be forced to do the parity swap procedure. Also, the only time unRAID requires a clear disk is when it will be added to a new slot in an array that already has valid parity. A clear disk is all zeros and so has no affect on the existing parity if it is added as a new disk. And, if a disk that is not already clear is added to a new slot unRAID will clear it before adding it. A replacement disk doesn't need to be clear since it is going to be completely overwritten during rebuild from the parity calculation. People often clear a new disk just to test it, but a clear disk isn't a requirement for a replacement disk. You can already have a spare disk installed, but I'm not sure whether or not it will be spun down if not being used.
April 26, 20188 yr Author 18 minutes ago, trurl said: The hot spare must be no larger than (<=) parity, unless you want to be forced to do the parity swap procedure. Makes sense, I was thinking of the case: "what if parity were to fail" in which case it would have to be equal to, but I thought, "Well it could be bigger." 20 minutes ago, trurl said: A replacement disk doesn't need to be clear since it is going to be completely overwritten during rebuild from the parity calculation. People often clear a new disk just to test it, but a clear disk isn't a requirement for a replacement disk. I guess I thought pre-clear was a requirement for a replacement disk, as when I was adding a drive to my array, I saw unRAID clearing the disk, or using that wording. My mistake. 23 minutes ago, trurl said: You can already have a spare disk installed, but I'm not sure whether or not it will be spun down if not being used. That's true. I hadn't considered that point. My brain was more on the automation factors of the convenience; customer peace of mind; that sort of thread.
April 26, 20188 yr 1 hour ago, Jcloud said: I was thinking of the case: "what if parity were to fail" in which case it would have to be equal to, but I thought, "Well it could be bigger." If you needed to replace parity, and the replacement was smaller than existing parity but still at least as large as the largest data disk, then I think you would have to New Config to get it to accept the smaller parity disk. Either way, parity would be rebuilt.
April 26, 20188 yr Community Expert 2 hours ago, trurl said: If you needed to replace parity, and the replacement was smaller than existing parity but still at least as large as the largest data disk, then I think you would have to New Config to get it to accept the smaller parity disk. Either way, parity would be rebuilt. Interesting to see if this is actually true as in theory it should be allowed. I wonder if anyone has ever tried it.
April 27, 20188 yr 9 hours ago, itimpi said: Interesting to see if this is actually true as in theory it should be allowed. New config would not be necessary, just assign new smaller parity and resync.
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.