I'm running out of both drive space and drive slots on my current server, and am looking at migrating to a smaller server chassis connected to a DAS unit (Levono SA120).  After doing significant research, this appears to be the optimum solution to expand my server in my existing wallmount cabinet (AR112, short depth).

 

I'd be moving 2x parity drives, a 2x SSD cache pool, 3x drives directly connected to the motherboard, and 3x drives connected through an icydock 2x 5.25" to 3x 3.5" backplane cage (MB153SP-B) over to a server that would optimally hold just the parity drives and cache drives; everything else would be housed in the DAS.

 

Any advice on how best to make this transfer without messing up my environment/losing data?  I'm reusing the motherboard (X11SSM-F), and it's my understanding that I'd want each drive plugged back into the same SATA port on the MB after migration.  This obviously wouldn't be possible if I'm moving the majority of the drives over to the DAS.

 

Also, how much of an extra headache would it be to try to upgrade the parity drives during this migration?

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

 

 

1 hour ago, jamesp469 said:

and it's my understanding that I'd want each drive plugged back into the same SATA port on the MB after migration

That's incorrect, Unraid tracks disks by serial, not controller/port, as long as you don't use any raid controllers there won't be any issues.

2 hours ago, jamesp469 said:

Also, how much of an extra headache would it be to try to upgrade the parity drives during this migration?

Shouldn't be a headache as the migration would of course be finished as soon as unraid can detect all your disks as properly connected.

Then upgrading parity would be a simple remove and replace.

9 hours ago, johnnie.black said:

That's incorrect, Unraid tracks disks by serial, not controller/port, as long as you don't use any raid controllers there won't be any issues.

Glad I misunderstood this, thanks.  This should be a fairly painless migration then.