So I tried to replace 2x 1TB drives with a 4TB one. My parity disk is also a 4 TB disk. I powered down, removed the old drives, installed the new one and tried to rebuild the array. I googled some and red somewhere about the new config command, I didn't even read the text it came with but I clicked it anyway and choose preserve parity drive config thinking I could rebuild afterwards. 

 

Long story short, I'm stuck at this screen. My parity drive still contains all data but I have no Idea how to or if its possible to rebuild the array from the parity drive at this point.

 

I still got the old drives so worse case I should be able to rebuild from that right? Otherwise I still got a backup of all my data but that isn't recent and I would have to re setup the whole server. 

Edited April 25, 20197 yr by gollink

8 minutes ago, gollink said:

My parity drive still contains all data

Parity doesn't contain any data. Single parity PLUS all other disks allow a single disk to be rebuilt.

 

So, you can't really do what you were trying to do. You will have to use the original disks to get any of your data.

 

There are a couple of ways you could do this, but I am going to tell you the way that will lead you to what you should have done.

 

First, New Config with all the original disks in their original slots. Check the box saying parity is already valid. It should be assuming you haven't left anything out of your description, but I would feel better about it if you did a noncorrecting parity check after you get your array back to its original configuration.

 

Then, you can do the disk replacement the correct way, one disk at a time.

 

Try this much and let us know if you have any questions or problems, and we can go on to the next part.

18 minutes ago, trurl said:

Parity doesn't contain any data. Single parity PLUS all other disks allow a single disk to be rebuilt.

 

So, you can't really do what you were trying to do. You will have to use the original disks to get any of your data.

 

There are a couple of ways you could do this, but I am going to tell you the way that will lead you to what you should have done.

 

First, New Config with all the original disks in their original slots. Check the box saying parity is already valid. It should be assuming you haven't left anything out of your description, but I would feel better about it if you did a noncorrecting parity check after you get your array back to its original configuration.

 

Then, you can do the disk replacement the correct way, one disk at a time.

 

Try this much and let us know if you have any questions or problems, and we can go on to the next part.

Thank you, I now have my server back in its old state and are doing a non correcting parity check which will finish in like 12 hours. How would I proceed to replace the two 1tb drives for one 4tb drive?

Might be a good idea to post diagnostics and let us have a look before proceeding just in case. Tools - Diagnostics, attach complete zip to your next post.

 

57 minutes ago, gollink said:

How would I proceed to replace the two 1tb drives for one 4tb drive?

You can't actually do that.

 

Replace one of the 1TB drives with the 4TB drive and let it rebuild. That will give you a 4TB drive with all the contents of that 1TB drive.

 

Simpler really just to leave that other 1TB drive in unless there is something wrong with it. Then later when you get another larger disk you can use it to replace/rebuild the other 1TB.

 

If you really want to remove it, you can copy its data to the new 4TB drive, then New Config without that 1TB drive and rebuild parity.

 

Wouldn't this be a correct way to do it? https://wiki.unraid.net/Replacing_Multiple_Data_Drives_with_a_Single_Larger_Drive

Edited April 25, 20197 yr by gollink

58 minutes ago, gollink said:

Wouldn't this be a correct way to do it? https://wiki.unraid.net/Replacing_Multiple_Data_Drives_with_a_Single_Larger_Drive

That's what he told you to do. Where do you think it's different from what you have already been told?

The wiki is a bit wordier and more detailed than what I described, but basically what I said was the same as in the wiki section labelled "Safer Method"

4 hours ago, trurl said:

Replace one of the 1TB drives with the 4TB drive and let it rebuild. That will give you a 4TB drive with all the contents of that 1TB drive.

Quote

Stop array and power down.

Replace one of the smaller drives with the new larger drive and power up.

Assign new larger drive to replace missing smaller drive, and start the array, to let unRAID rebuild onto it.

 

4 hours ago, trurl said:

If you really want to remove it, you can copy its data to the new 4TB drive, then New Config without that 1TB drive and rebuild parity

Quote

Copy all files from the other smaller drive(s) to the larger drive. For example, if a smaller drive is Disk 2 and the larger drive is Disk 3, then you could use this command in console or telnet:

rsync -avX /mnt/disk2/ /mnt/disk3

Stop array and power down.

Remove the remaining smaller drive(s) and power up.

Use New Config to unassign removed drive(s). You can also change the slot assignments of the new drive or any other drives at this point.

Start array and let parity rebuild.

There are lots of other ways to do the copy than going to the command line with rsync.

As I also mentioned

4 hours ago, trurl said:

Simpler really just to leave that other 1TB drive in unless there is something wrong with it. Then later when you get another larger disk you can use it to replace/rebuild the other 1TB.

Unless there is something wrong with that other 1TB (which diagnostics might tell us) or unless you have some other really good reason to reduce the drive count, I would just leave it for now.

Oh oke I'm sorry. The Parity-Check has finished and hasn't encountered any errors. Here are my diagnostics files. 

server-diagnostics-20190426-0633.zip

 

The only thing I'm worried about when leaving one drive is that the disks total up 5TB and my parity disk is 4TB. But I'm gonna try to install the old disk as a second parity disk if I got enough sata ports for that. Upgrading the old drives in the future should be a breeze then. 

Edited April 26, 20197 yr by gollink

There is no relationship between the size of the parity disk and the total size of the array!    The parity disk contains no data  in its own right, but instead the information that can be used in conjunction with all the other good drives to recover a failed drive.   You might want to read up in the online documentation on how parity works as understanding that will clarify how Unraid uses parity to recover after drive failures.

I did some research and now got a much better understanding of how this all works. If I knew this I probably would never have got in this situation at all. Just gonna replace my first disk with the new one and be done with it. 

Edited April 26, 20197 yr by gollink

(all disks look OK from that diagnostic)

 

Just in case you aren't completely clear on this

7 hours ago, gollink said:

I'm gonna try to install the old disk as a second parity disk

Each parity disk must be at least as large as the largest single data disk. The old 1TB disk could not be used as parity2 in an array that had a 4TB data disk.

 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

(all disks look OK from that diagnostic)

 

Just in case you aren't completely clear on this

Each parity disk must be at least as large as the largest single data disk. The old 1TB disk could not be used as parity2 in an array that had a 4TB data disk.

 

Yes I get that now, thanks for looking at my diagnostics. 

Edited April 26, 20197 yr by gollink