I currently have an Unraid server running with 3 1tb drives and 1 500gb cache drive. I ordered two 2tb WDEARS drives which should come tomorow. I know I have to run them jumpered.

 

1. I have to make one of this new drives the parity drive since I will be adding another 2TB drive and as far as I understand the parity has to be the as big as the biggest drive in the array. Is this correct?

 

2. If I am changing the parity drive to the 2TB disk, what is the best way to do it? shutdown, remove current parity, add new drive, boot unraid, assign new drive as parity and rerun parity check ?

 

3. Can I remove the current parity drive, add the 2 new drives to the array assigning one to parity and the other to data in one step ? do I have to preclear both of them? none of them?

 

4. How to I assign the "old" parity drive to be a data drive after the new 2 tb drive becomes the parity drive?

 

Thanks in advance for the help,

 

Ezbox

I currently have an Unraid server running with 3 1tb drives and 1 500gb cache drive. I ordered two 2tb WDEARS drives which should come tomorow. I know I have to run them jumpered.

 

1. I have to make one of this new drives the parity drive since I will be adding another 2TB drive and as far as I understand the parity has to be the as big as the biggest drive in the array. Is this correct?

Yes... true

2. If I am changing the parity drive to the 2TB disk, what is the best way to do it? shutdown, remove current parity, add new drive, boot unraid, assign new drive as parity and rerun parity check ?

Actually, do a full parity check FIRST, to make sure your current array is working BEFORE you swap any drives.  Then, your description is what you need to do but the system will know the parity disk is changed and do an initial calculation when you start the array.  Once it is done, then you ALSO need to do a full parity check.  The initial calc "writes" the parity drive, but you'll not know it can be read until you check it.

3. Can I remove the current parity drive, add the 2 new drives to the array assigning one to parity and the other to data in one step ?

No the array will have two new disks and you'll lose the data on the data drive.  DO ONE DISK AT A TIME.

do I have to preclear both of them? none of them?

Strongly suggest you do both... See this thread: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7814.0

4. How to I assign the "old" parity drive to be a data drive after the new 2 tb drive becomes the parity drive?

You just assign it as a data drive.  You might want to pre-clear it first though otherwise your server will be off-line for 6 to 8 hours while it clears the drive for you.

Thanks in advance for the help,

 

Ezbox

You are welcome.

Correct, one of your new drives will have to be the new parity drive.  There are two ways of adding them to the array, but here's the way I recommend:

 

1) Run a parity check (you can start it now, even before the new drives arrive).  If there are errors, seek help here.

2) Preclear both new drives with jumpers on.  This step is optional but highly recommended.  This can also be done simultaneously along with the parity check.  You can preclear both new drives simultaneously as well by pressing Alt-F1, Alt-F2, etc. to switch between multiple console screens.

3) Stop the array, power down the server, and remove the old parity drive (or just unplug the SATA/power cords if you plan on repurposing it as a data drive but leaving it in the same physical spot)

4) Install the new parity drive (but leave the old one unplugged/uninstalled).  Leave your other new drive uninstalled for the time being.

5) Power on the server.  You should see a message about 'upgrading parity'.  Start the array and wait for the parity sync to complete (this will take a long time).

6) Run another parity check.  If there are errors, seek help here.

7) Stop the array, power down the server.  Install the new 2 TB data drive (with jumper on).

Power on the server.  Stop the array if it is started, go to the devices page, assign the new 2 TB drive into an empty drive slot (disk3 or whatever slot you want to use).

9a) If you precleared the disk previously, the downtime will be a few minutes.  Keep refreshing the browser until you see the drive identified as 'unformatted'.  As long as the 2 TB data drive AND NO OTHER DRIVE is marked as 'unformatted', then it is OK to press the 'Format' button.  If you see any other drives marked as unformatted, seek help here.

9b) If you did not preclear the disk, then unRAID will clear it for you.  This will take many hours and the array will be down during this time.  After the clear completes, follow the same instructions above to format the disk.

10) Run a third parity check.  Again, if there are errors seek help here.

11) Install the old 1 TB parity drive

12) Preclear the old 1 TB parity drive (again, optional but recommended) or assign it as disk4 (or in any empty slot) and let unRAID clear it.

13) Run a parity check.

 

As you can see, the safest bet is to run a parity check before and after doing any hardware changes.

Thanks ... Will start the process tonight while awaiting the drives to arrive. Will check in hopefully when everything is working 100%

 

Update:

 

Looks like one of my drives is DOA darn decrease in quality of WD drives.  Both drives are recognized by the preclear script, one does not show any data being read (even when the HD light is showing activity) and the other one is already at 4% preclearing.

 

Can I assume the HD is bad if I dont see any data being read in the 1st HD while running the script?

 

 

Update:

 

Looks like one of my drives is DOA darn decrease in quality of WD drives.  Both drives are recognized by the preclear script, one does not show any data being read (even when the HD light is showing activity) and the other one is already at 4% preclearing.

 

Can I assume the HD is bad if I dont see any data being read in the 1st HD while running the script?

 

Take a smart report of the suspect drive and post results.  That should provide clues as to whether the drive is bad or the cabling is bad (4 out of 5 times it is the cabling).

Finally got to the point I am able to use one of the new disks as parity. Says it will take about 500 minutes to upgrade the parity. I have 2 1tb data disks and 1 2tb parity (new drive). Is that amount of time reasonable for parity upgrade? Disk says is working at 60,000 KB/sec.

 

Ohh another question, anyway for cache size NOT to be added as total share size? Right now im supposed to have 1.81 TB of protected space but the share shows 2.27TB which is the array + 500gb cache. I think it may be misleading as to how much space is really available for media (that is protected).  If you run something (sabNZB / Sickbeard) off cache drive will it not let Unrad stop the array properly?. I shutdown the services before stopping the array, however the syslog keeps saying that /mnt/cache is busy. Any ideas?

 

Thanks upfront  for the replies

 

Ezbox

500 minutes (8.3 hours) is completely normal for a parity sync, parity check, or rebuild from parity.  60 mb/s is also completely normal (though you'll see that speed fluctuate as the sync/check/rebuild finishes with your smallest disks and spins them down).

 

As for your second question, what is showing your total space including the cache drive?  Windows?  unMenu?  Something else?  I agree that the cache drive should not count towards your total server size as it is not protected.

Windows 7 was showing 2.27TB when it should have been 1.81 TB (3 1TB drive + 1 500gb cache). Now with the new 2TB hd windows still shows 500gb extra of space, looks like is reporting the array + the 500gb cache as the total space of the share.

 

In my share settings I have use the cache drive selected.  I just ask since it seemed weird to have the extra space show up as available when its not protected.

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Ezbox

So you are using a mapped drive to windows then?  You can also just make shortcuts to your share's network locations (that's what I do, furthermore I like to use Win7's favorites bar on the left of any explorer window).  These won't show you the server's capacity at all, but they work just as well as mapped drives.  You could then use unMenu to manually check on your server's capacity if you wish.

 

Maybe not the ideal solution for you, but that's what I do.