Global Share Setting to exclude one disk question

[FrozenGamer]

If i set the global share settings to exclude one disk of the array will the following happen.  No further writes will be written to that disk until i change it back to exclude none.  In particular mover script, because i don't see a lot of other ways it would start filling up under normal circumstances.  

 

Is there any danger to leaving a disk excluded for a week or two.  Purpose is to pull the mostly empty disk in a shrink array without losing parity sometime in the next few weeks..  (i cleared the data, but don't want more to fill up before i have time to remove the disk)

[JorgeB]

1 hour ago, FrozenGamer said:

No further writes will be written to that disk until i change it back to exclude none. 

Yes, but be aware that split settings override include/exclude settings.

 

1 hour ago, FrozenGamer said:

Is there any danger to leaving a disk excluded for a week or two.

No, the disk just won't be written to, only "danger" I can think of is you could run out of space if the other disks are full.

[JonathanM]

8 hours ago, FrozenGamer said:

Purpose is to pull the mostly empty disk in a shrink array without losing parity sometime in the next few weeks..  (i cleared the data, but don't want more to fill up before i have time to remove the disk)

Taken at face value, this won't work. If you insist on pulling a disk without invalidating parity, the disk can't be empty, it must be clear.

 

Empty implies a valid filesystem, which contains metadata to store files. You must fill the disk with zeroes to remove it without invalidating parity. Once it's full of zeroes, it won't mount, so no need to exclude it.

[FrozenGamer]

1 hour ago, jonathanm said:

Taken at face value, this won't work. If you insist on pulling a disk without invalidating parity, the disk can't be empty, it must be clear.

 

Empty implies a valid filesystem, which contains metadata to store files. You must fill the disk with zeroes to remove it without invalidating parity. Once it's full of zeroes, it won't mount, so no need to exclude it.

This would be just to keep the disk almost empty until i planned on following these instructions in the future, otherwise the mover script will probably put more files on it - https://wiki.unraid.net/Shrink_array#For_unRAID_v6.2_and_later   

 

This first step is a little confusing to me -

"Make sure that the drive you are removing has been removed from any inclusions or exclusions for all shares, including in the global share settings.."

 

  The way i read it, when i am actually ready to remove the drive this step would mean, global share settings are no exclusions, and drive #4 (the drive) would be removed from all inclusions.  With individual shares drive 4 should be removed from each share's inclusions, but exclusions would stay at none.  I would have thought that global share settings alone would do it.

[FrozenGamer]

8 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

10 hours ago, FrozenGamer said:

No further writes will be written to that disk until i change it back to exclude none. 

Yes, but be aware that split settings override include/exclude settings.

Ok, it would potential split some files in folder, but not put them on the excluded drive, right? 

Edited February 8, 2019 by FrozenGamer
typo

[JorgeB]

1 minute ago, FrozenGamer said:

Ok, it would potential split some files in folder, but not put them on the excluded drive, right? 

If the folder already exists on the excluded drive and depending on the split settings for that share, it can write to that disk, if no folders exist or all that exist are set to split all nothing will be written there.

[FrozenGamer]

2 minutes ago, johnnie.black said:

If the folder already exists on the excluded drive and depending on the split settings for that share, it can write to that disk, if no folders exist or all that exist are set to split all nothing will be written there.

Ok, sounds like i should move the files off the drive then exclude it, or just move whatever gets moved back later.  Thanks for the clarification!