I'm interested in knowing if its possible to move from a dual parity drive setup to a single parity drive setup with out data loss? And how this could be accomplished?

Edited August 4, 20187 yr by m.b.d

None of your data is on a parity drive so no data to lose. Just New Config without parity2. No need to rebuild parity1 so be sure to check the box saying parity is already valid.

3 minutes ago, trurl said:

None of your data is on a parity drive so no data to lose. Just New Config without parity2. No need to rebuild parity1 so be sure to check the box saying parity is already valid.

I assume when i do the new config i dont want to preserve the current assignment?

 

I've screen caped my current drive assignment and will just add everything back except one of the parity drives?  

 

New Config makes me nervous....

The best way is to do the new config and select that you wish to keep the current configuration for data, parity and cache (if you are using cache).

 

Then when you go to the main tab you can unassigned the 2nd parity (make sure it is the 2nd parity disk that you unassigned);  this is because after doing the new config the main tab is still. In initial disk assignment mode (like when you originally assigned the disks when you first set up unRaid).  You can double check that the other disks are assigned as you would expect from your screenshot - they should be but it doesn’t hurt to double check for piece of mind.   [if you hadn’t selected to keep the current configuration of your disks when you did the new config at this point you would instead need to assign them from the information in your screenshot]

 

Then when you go to start the array you can select the option that parity is valid.

 

The array should then start with just the 1st parity disk.  If at this point any disk comes up saying it is unformated stop, do not continue, and ask for help.

 

Once you are happy that the system is back up and running ok, I recommend you start a parity check.

 

 

Edited August 4, 20187 yr by remotevisitor

Removing the second parity disk is a no risk operation. As explained in the previous posts, but outlined here as steps:

 

1. Stop the array

2. Go to Tools -> New Config

3. Set Preserve current assignments to ALL

4. Apply the New Config command

5. Go to the Main page

6. Unassign parity2 disk

7. Check "parity is already valid"

8. Start the array

 

You don't even need to do a new config, just unassign parity2, start the array and you're done.

1 minute ago, johnnie.black said:

You don't even need to do a new config, just unassign parity2, start the array and you're done.

 

Haha, I never tried that, but it makes life really easy

 

Thank you all for the great advice,  Johnnie.black seems to be correct.  I stopped the array, removed the drive from 2nd Parity and restarted the array.  Doing a parity check now but looks like everything is golden.

 

 

Just to put a final note on this, if you do New Config, it's important to be aware that parity1 and parity2 aren't interchangeable. So if you decided you want to reuse the parity1 disk for data, you can't substitute the parity2 disk for parity1 without rebuilding parity.