Importing Disks, coming from another system (SOLVED)

[Toobie]

Hi there,

 

iam new here so may sorry for my noob question.

Im switching with a new hardware build vom ufs (xigmanas/nas4free) to Unraid.

 

My old drives are formatted with ufs and are full of data. (2x2TB UFS & 2x500GB ZFS pool)

What will happen, when i switch the drives to unraid?

Do i have to backup my files? Will they be wiped? Or can they stay on the disks?

Edited June 24, 2019 by Toobie

[trurl]

Unraid must format any disk it will use in the parity array or cache pool.

[itimpi]

The process many people follow is to create the initial array with one disk which you let Unraid partition and format.    You then attach one of your existing disks to Unraid and use the Unassigned Devices plugin to mount it so that you can copy its data to the array.   When the copy completes you can the add that drive to the array and let Unraid partition and format it to get more space in the array.  Rinse-and-repeat until all the data is on the Unraid array.

[trurl]

2 hours ago, Toobie said:

formatted with ufs and are full of data. (2x2TB UFS & 2x500GB ZFS pool

Not sure if UD can read those.

[Squid]

42 minutes ago, trurl said:

2x500GB ZFS

But the ZFS plugin should be able to

[Toobie]

20 hours ago, Squid said:

But the ZFS plugin should be able to

So I could install this 2 disks after installing this plugin and Unraid would be able to read the content?

[Toobie]

23 hours ago, itimpi said:

The process many people follow is to create the initial array with one disk which you let Unraid partition and format.    You then attach one of your existing disks to Unraid and use the Unassigned Devices plugin to mount it so that you can copy its data to the array.   When the copy completes you can the add that drive to the array and let Unraid partition and format it to get more space in the array.  Rinse-and-repeat until all the data is on the Unraid array.

So for understanding. I bought now a new 4TB HDD and a 120GB SSD.

The SSD is insert as a Cache device.

I will than attach the 4TB Drive as a Parity Disk in a new Array, use the "Unassigned Devices plugin" to copy one ot the 2TB device.

Afterwards I have to add this 2TB into the arrey as a normal disk.

I have to repeat this steps till every disk is into my Array?

Edited May 27, 2019 by Toobie

[itimpi]

5 minutes ago, Toobie said:

So for understanding. I bought now a new 4TB HDD and a 120GB SSD.

The SSD is insert as a Cache device.

I will than attach the 4TB Drive as a Parity Disk in a new Array, use the "Unassigned Devices plugin" to copy one ot the 2TB device.

Afterwards I have to add this 2TB into the arrey as a normal disk.

I have to repeat this steps till every disk is into my Array?

You have to have at least one data disk in the array.    It is possible to start without a parity disk and then add that later.

[Squid]

So I could install this 2 disks after installing this plugin and Unraid would be able to read the content?

I suppose never had a need to use it

Sent via telekinesis

[Toobie]

10 minutes ago, itimpi said:

You have to have at least one data disk in the array.    It is possible to start without a parity disk and then add that later.

So I need to empty one of the 2TB Disks first, to add it at a Data Disk?

 

[JonathanM]

2 hours ago, Toobie said:

So I need to empty one of the 2TB Disks first, to add it at a Data Disk?

 

No, assign your 4TB as Disk1, not parity. You can add another 4TB to be parity1 later.

[Toobie]

No, assign your 4TB as Disk1, not parity. You can add another 4TB to be parity1 later.

And if I won't buy another 4TB hdd?
I actually didn't want to expand the existing storage, so the one new 4tb hdd is already a compromise.

Sent from my MI 6 using Tapatalk

[itimpi]

5 minutes ago, Toobie said:

And if I won't buy another 4TB hdd?
I actually didn't want to expand the existing storage, so the one new 4tb hdd is already a compromise.

Sent from my MI 6 using Tapatalk
 

one possibility is to initially add the 4TB disk as a data disk.   This will dive you some space to copy the data from the 2TB disks onto the array so they can then be added to the array.  At the end copy the data off the 4TB disk back onto one of the 2TB disks that are now in the array.  This would then free up the 4TB disk to use it as parity.   It does have the downside that until the end when you have put the 4TB disk into the parity position you will not be protected against a disk failing but you may deem this an acceptable risk? 

[trurl]

Do you have a backup of anything important and irreplaceable?

[Toobie]

2 hours ago, itimpi said:

one possibility is to initially add the 4TB disk as a data disk.   This will dive you some space to copy the data from the 2TB disks onto the array so they can then be added to the array.  At the end copy the data off the 4TB disk back onto one of the 2TB disks that are now in the array.  This would then free up the 4TB disk to use it as parity.   It does have the downside that until the end when you have put the 4TB disk into the parity position you will not be protected against a disk failing but you may deem this an acceptable risk? 

This sounds like a plan. Is there a server side solution for copy the files or do I have to use a computer/laptop for it?

 

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Do you have a backup of anything important and irreplaceable? 

No I don't, its just movies, series, music. Wouldn't a disaster to lose these files but would be also a lot of work to reorganize them..

But at the moment I still don't have a backup, so it couldn't get worse

--

For a better understanding, how much storage do I have after building my system?

4TB Parity + 2TB + 2TB + 500GB + 500GB

Is it all together 9TB or still 5TB? I'm a bit confused about this unraid system - sorry.

[itimpi]

3 minutes ago, Toobie said:

This sounds like a plan. Is there a server side solution for copy the files or do I have to use a computer/laptop for it?

Unraid has the 'mc' (Midnight Commander) as a pseudo-graphical CLI tool.   If a full mouse driven graphical file manager is wanted then common candidates are the Krusader or Dolphin docker containers which can be installed via the Apps tab.   Also as guessed you can use another machine to do this over the network.

[JonathanM]

20 minutes ago, Toobie said:

For a better understanding, how much storage do I have after building my system?

4TB Parity + 2TB + 2TB + 500GB + 500GB

Is it all together 9TB or still 5TB? I'm a bit confused about this unraid system - sorry.

Parity doesn't store any data, so just add all the data drives together. In your example with all those set up in data slots it would indeed be 5TB. If you choose to implement a cache pool, recommended for dockers or vm's, that complicates things.

[Toobie]

UD doesn't support ufs drives.
So does anybody know how I can copy my two diskes?

Sent from my MI 6 using Tapatalk

[JonathanM]

Does the system used to create those UFS drives know how to write to XFS or BTRFS?

[Toobie]

Does the system used to create those UFS drives know how to write to XFS or BTRFS?

Don't know yet, was xigmanas aka nas4free.

Sent from my MI 6 using Tapatalk

[Toobie]

Does the system used to create those UFS drives know how to write to XFS or BTRFS?

From the wiki:

Filesystems

ZFS v5000, UFS

Ext2, Ext3

FAT, NTFS

So.. no ;(

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[JonathanM]

Well, you are going to have to find some system that can read ufs and xfs at the same time, or temporarily stand up 2 boxes, one with nas4free and one with unraid.

[Toobie]

I started with running xigmanas from USB, mounting my UFS drives, copy my files by network to my windows pc.

 

Worked well with one of the 2TB HDD. As I switched to the second one.. dont know what, but something happened, so all the data from this disk is lost now.

Actually just music, series and some kids movies.. could get worse.

 

But now I have my 4TB Parity and the rest as data disk and iam starting to run all my desired apps.

 

Thanks for your kind support and help!