I don't think that's what I meant to do...

[TyantA]

Simple task, so I thought: move all drives one slot down from disk 4, onward. This is to make room for a new drive I want in the disk 4 slot. 

 

I did some searching and the consensus seemed to be "stop the array, re-arrange (unassign, reassign), settings > new config & trust parity (with 1 parity drive). 

 

Ok, well in unraid 6.5.3 instead of a "trust parity" option, there's a "Preserve..." drop down. Sounds like it does the same thing? So I go ahead with telling it to preserve my parity and cache assignments. 

 

Now, none of the data drives are assigned. Not what I was expecting, but OK. I make the first assignment referencing my screenshot and now, be side the parity drive, it says "All existing data on this device will be OVERWRITTEN when array is Started" Is this normal when all I'm doing is re-arranging the order of assigned drives? 

 

When someone says "trust parity" I'm thinking it should clue in to the fact that everything is status-quo except for the slots drives live in. Why the parity rebuild? Did I approach this wrong?

 

Edit: Oh, or was that referring to the checkbox beside Start that says "Parity is already valid" 

 

If that is the case, maybe I'll continue with the drive re-arranging and THEN add the drive I want in slot 4. Or should I just power down the server, add the new disk/slot 4 and let everything rebuild. I guess it's 6 of one, half a dozen...

[JorgeB]

6 minutes ago, TyantA said:

"trust parity" option, there's a "Preserve..." drop down.

These are different things, "trust parity" means to check the "parity is already valid" box before starting the array, "preserve" it's just to do a new config but keep current assignments.

 

7 minutes ago, TyantA said:

it says "All existing data on this device will be OVERWRITTEN when array is Started" Is this normal when all I'm doing is re-arranging the order of assigned drives? 

The warning is normal after any new config, as long as you check "parity is already valid" before starting the array (and that option is next to the start array button), parity won't be touched.

[TyantA]

Ok, that's what I've been piecing together. Except... 

 

disk 1 is giving me a "unmountable: no file system"

 

Edit: I see what happened. I accidentally hit "mount" on disk 1 when it was listed under unassigned devices. Obviously couldn't be included in the array that way. Stopped the array, unassigned, unmounted it, reassigned & started the array. Back in business with the desired result: an empty slot for my next drive. Thanks @johnnie.black for the prompt reply! 

[JorgeB]

5 minutes ago, TyantA said:

I accidentally hit "mount" on disk 1 when it was listed under unassigned devices.

Then you should run a parity check, a few sync errors are expected.

[TyantA]

52 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

Then you should run a parity check, a few sync errors are expected.

Ok, I just dropped in the other drive to that 4th slot I opened up (which was previously in the server; a data drive replaced by a larger one) which is now clearing. Once that's done, I'll run a parity check. In the meantime, I have my final new drive preclearing on my testbed.

 

Unrelated question: I have a P9X79 motherboard in my unraid server right now, and the Pro version in my desktop. As part of my upgrade plans, I'm moving the Pro back to the server as it has 8 SATA ports. 

 

My question is - the last 2 ports are labeled "SSD Caching". I presume they will still function as regular SATA ports? They're on a Marvell® PCIe 9128 controller. I'm kind of counting on it working as I plan to add a 1TB SSD for VMs and leave the last port open "just in case". 

[JorgeB]

Marvell controllers and Unraid usually don't go very well together, 9128 is not very common, you can try it but if there any issues like drooped drives or timeouts best to avoid it.

[TyantA]

I had that inkling in the back of my head, hence the question. Well, I guess the good news is it'll be a good test case. The one port, as mentioned, will be left open in case I need to do a pre-clear, etc. The other will be used for my new SSD which is just VMs. Nothing mission critical. I suppose if it proves to be stable I could fill that last slot with one final drive and just use an add-on card or my testbed if I need to do something temporary with another disk.  

[TyantA]

On 12/5/2018 at 2:34 PM, johnnie.black said:

Then you should run a parity check, a few sync errors are expected.

I'm glad you said that. 50% through the parity check and 515 sync errors so far. 

 

Edit: and that's where it ended. 515 errors corrected. In a few hours my last HDD will be done preclearing so I can get that in place. Then hopefully that's done with time to spare on the weekend so I can do the motherboard swap giving me that extra SATA port for my new VM SSD. Then FINALLY, I'll have some room to work with . Thanks again for your help.