12 or 14 TB drives?


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 Hello,

 

 I'm sorry if you find this question stupid or that you feel that I'm lazy and didn't search the general info or FAQ... but I didn't find this answer: can anyone give me a quick answer on the drive size compatibility currently provided by Unraid (bonus question: is "Lime Tech" no longer a thing)? I'm seeing drives at 12 & 14TB in size currently available for purchase online and would I love to pick-up a few to upgrade my parity and at least one storage drive, if I can. Thanks in advance!

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2 hours ago, MrOnionSkins said:

Really? "Back in the day" Unraid told of drive size limitations... at least as I remember it. That's awesome! I appreciate the reply johnathanm. Thanks!

Back in the day unraid was limited to 2.2TB, so the largest drive was practically a 2TB. That changed with the advent of unraid 5.0 I believe, and the new limit was ReiserFS, at 16TB. Since 6.0, or whenever XFS and BTRFS were added, the limits aren't really in sight any more, at least not for several years.

 

If you are still using ReiserFS, you will have performance issues with larger drives, 2TB is stretching it performance wise.

 

There is still an issue with older hardware that can't see more than 2.2TB, but that's not anything that unraid can bypass.

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FWIW:  the best gigabyte/$ value right now in large storage format is 8TB reds... (or a shucked 8tb).  

 

I just went through this during WD / PRIME DAY sales:

 

I settled on 1 12TB (for parity) and 4 x 10 TB (for data) 

 

This is replacing 5 x 4tb in my array.

 

The jump up in price for the 12TBs were not worth propagating over 5 drives... and the 8TB while great deals, would find me doing this dance again in a year.  

 

For me best mix was 12 TB at 279 and 4 10TB at 215 each.  Though 5 x 8 TB at 160 would have been a nice savings.

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The majority of my drives are currently ReiserFS... and all 14 of them are now 4TB (well, currently rebuilding my last replacement drive @ 4TB). Only three of those 14 are XFS. I'm guessing, per johnathanm's last post, that my performance is suffering due to this. Considering my earlier post on bigger drives, how would you recommend I remedy this? Pick up two 12GB drives initially and replace the parity then one data that is already XFS... then gradually transfer the existing data to the new 12TB XFS drive until I have an empty existing drive... then replace that one with another new 12TB XFS... rinse and repeat... and repeat... and repeat... as my time and wallet allows? Is there an easier way?

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Pick a reiserfs drive that currently has the least data on it. Copy all the data on that drive to any other drives on the array with space. When all the data on that drive has been safely copied and verified, stop the array, click on the disk you just finished copying off of, and change the format type to xfs. When you start the array, verify that the only unmountable drive is the one you just changed, and select the option to format it. Now that you have an empty xfs drive, pick the next target reiserfs drive and copy everything to the xfs drive, stop the array, change the format of the reiserfs drive you just copied from, etc, etc.

 

I would recommend copying instead of moving, as one of the biggest performance issues with a reiserfs drive is modifying files on it, including deleting with a move. Formatting the reiserfs drive is a MUCH faster way of deleting all the files at once.

 

If you don't have 4TB total free, then yes, you will need to purchase new drives to start the process.

 

It sounds like you have a handle on this, but I'll repeat it here for emphasis sake. You can NOT change the file system type with a drive rebuild from parity. Rebuilds only ever recreate the file system as a whole, if you try to change it, you will be greeted with an unmountable drive and be asked to format it. You will then face a blank freshly formatted drive and your data will be gone. File system conversion must be done by copying the data elsewhere before changing the file system type.

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  • 2 months later...

~3 months later I'm finally moving on this idea. Thank you so much jonathanm for all of your awesome insight. Does anyone have some answers on file transfers via Midnight Commander between drives with similar file structures? Example: I have a drive that's already established but has more than enough space to move files from a larger drive to an already established but pretty empty drive. How should I move files from "drive A" containing files within a structure that includes files defined as /Movies/foldername/filename (not as important as movies that are exclusive files because movies are one instance)... and /TV/Series "X/"filename? Is the intelligence built-in that the files will go into the "right place" and not create random directories? Shorter version: I select to copy drive A to drive B.... does it understand or account for file structure? 

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If you use the rsync commands documented in the sticky reiserfs to xfs conversion thread it will copy the folders intact with all the contents. If you use midnight commander, it's up to you to make sure the source and destination are correct, i.e. /mnt/disk1 on the left pane and /mnt/disk2 on the right.

 

For the purposes of this exercise, NEVER operate in the /mnt/user tree. All commands and paths must reference /mnt/diskX and /mnt/diskY for source and destination.

 

I personally recommend rsync vs. mc, for the simple reason that verification of a complete copy is easier to manage with rsync.

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