Changing File System


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OK. So the transfer of the first drive will complete in a few hours(Wow it takes a long time). 

 

You mentioned that I can skip steps 10-18 from the instructions on the other post. In doing so, what are my next steps? After the copy and verify is done, I can format the original drive and use it for the next transfer. Do I have to do anything with parity? I'm assuming I need to reconfigure that at some point??

 

Thanks for the help!

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The transfer of files from the Disk1 to Disk4(destination drive) is complete. 

 

I mapped to both disks from Windows to compare files and everything seems good! 

 

What I am wondering though, on Disk4, it created a folder called Disk1 and put everything in there. Is this normal? Do I need to move the files back to the root?

 

Thanks!

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2 minutes ago, senrab said:

it created a folder called Disk1 and put everything in there.

It means that on the rsync command you used, you added an extra slash to the command (if you look closely at the instructions, only one of the source and destination paths have the trailing slash (can't remember which), not both

4 minutes ago, senrab said:

Do I need to move the files back to the root?

Yes

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13 minutes ago, Squid said:

It means that on the rsync command you used, you added an extra slash to the command (if you look closely at the instructions, only one of the source and destination paths have the trailing slash (can't remember which), not both

Yes

Great thanks! 

 

I have checked a bunch of files( a lot) and all seems good. Is the verify step recommended?

 

Also, do I have to do anything with parity? After I am done changing all of my drives to XFS, do I just need to run a parity check? 

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4 minutes ago, Squid said:

Parity is updated in real-time, so it will reflect the changes, and no check is strictly required or necessary

Great thanks!

 

If I now stop the array, change/format Disk1 (the disk I copied all data from) to XFS, then start the array, will this work? 

 

From there I will copy all data from another drive to this drive (Disk 1). I guess what I am wondering is, how will Unraid know where the files are? My shares are setup across all drives. Since I have moved everything from Disk 1 to Disk 4, how does it know where the files are? Is it done through the shares? Some of my folders have data across multiple disks. 

 

 

Edited by senrab
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It just knows!  That is way you paid the big bucks to LimeTech so made sure that all of this type of detail is handled in the backgound without requiring any user intervention.  The only time this is not true is if you restrict the data to certain disks and even then I don't think  it 'hides' data which is in a share which is not supposed to be on a particular disk, it just won't write more information to that share on that disk. 

Edited by Frank1940
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1 minute ago, Frank1940 said:

It just knows!  That is way you paid the big bucks to LimeTech so made sure that all of this type of detail is handled in the backgound without requiring any user intervention.  The only time this is not true is if you restrict the data to certain disks and even then I don't it 'hides' data which is in a share which is not supposed to be on a particular disk, it just won't write more information to that share on that disk. 

LOL! Thanks for the info! 

 

I will stop the array and do a format/change file system and rinse and repeat for the next drive!

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I cleared Disk 1 and started to move the data from Disk 3 to it. 

 

I am getting an error that says 'disk1 disk2 disk3 is not defined / installed in the array. This will cause errors when writing to the array. Fix it here: Movies Settings'.

 

When I click 'Movies Settings' I see that the included disks are 2,3,4 ( I set disk 1 to exclude in the global share settings). 

 

Should I be concerned about this? My data from Disk1 is now sitting on Disk4 so I am not too worried but I don't want parity to erase anything if it tries to fix anything. 

 

Thanks!

 

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7 minutes ago, Squid said:

Post a screenshot of the error and of the main tab

Sent from my phone as I'm probably having a beer and enjoying a fire
 

I have posted the error, Global Share settings and the Movies Share settings showing that Disk1 is not in the included. 

Global Share Settings.png

Movies Share Settings.png

Unraid Error Screenshot.png

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This is the reason for steps 10 through 15 on the procedure that I pointed you to.

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/File_System_Conversion#Mirror_each_disk_with_rsync.2C_preserving_parity

 

EDIT:  The file system changing seems simple but doing it so parity is always maintained is complex and at time confusing.  I did two servers so I do know this to be a fact.  I even set up a table of steps for each disk with the appropriate disk number(s) and checked off each step as I completed it to make sure that I did each step correctly.  

Edited by Frank1940
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1 hour ago, senrab said:

Can I leave it the way it is now and follow 10-15 when the transfer is done? 

From my perspective, I don't have the time to work through exactly what you have done and what has to be done in future steps to achieve this position at the end of the conversion.  I can only assume that the person who worked out this procedure in this section of the WIKI did try to make it as simple as possible to achieve the stated objective.  

 

There are some other procedures described in the WIKI.  So take a few minutes and read through the WIKI.  You can also wait for @Squid to get back to you.  

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9 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

From my perspective, I don't have the time to work through exactly what you have done and what has to be done in future steps to achieve this position at the end of the conversion.  I can only assume that the person who worked out this procedure in this section of the WIKI did try to make it as simple as possible to achieve the stated objective.  

 

There are some other procedures described in the WIKI.  So take a few minutes and read through the WIKI.  You can also wait for @Squid to get back to you.  

Ok, Thanks. 

 

All I have done is skip the steps 10-15 as per @jonathanm instructions. 

 

Once I verified the data from Disk 1 copied to Disk 4, I changed the file system of Disk 1 to XFS, formatted it and started copying the data from Disk 3 to Disk 1. 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, senrab said:

Ok, Thanks. 

 

All I have done is skip the steps 10-15 as per @jonathanm instructions. 

 

Once I verified the data from Disk 1 copied to Disk 4, I changed the file system of Disk 1 to XFS, formatted it and started copying the data from Disk 3 to Disk 1. 

 

 

My fault, I should have told you to skip step 4 as well.

 

The point of the extra steps is to move the drive assignments around so that content that started on disk1 will still be on disk1 when the procedure is done. However, it adds a bunch of complexity that is only needed if you care which disk holds what content. You mentioned earlier that you don't bother forcing content onto any particular disk, so it doesn't matter if the content is on a different number when you are done.

 

Also, the trailing slash thing is a common error. You forgot to put the slash after the source. The last slash on the destination doesn't matter, but you forgot the important one.

rsync --options /mnt/disk(source number)/ /mnt/disk(destination number)/

http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/2013/02/rsync-to-slash-or-not-to-slash/

 

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Also, just as an aside, the extra steps to maintain drive slots will not work properly if you have a disk assigned to parity2. They only work if you are only using parity1. Doesn't matter if you only have one parity disk or not, the slots are different and not interchangeable. parity1 is valid as long as the same disks are still in the array, order is unimportant, so you can swap numbers using the method described. Parity2 relies on disk numbers being constant as well as the same array members, so no swapping without rebuilding parity.

 

If at the end of the procedure you decide you want to reorder the disks, you can always do the new config / trust parity dance at the very end after all the data is moved.

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20 hours ago, jonathanm said:

My fault, I should have told you to skip step 4 as well.

 

The point of the extra steps is to move the drive assignments around so that content that started on disk1 will still be on disk1 when the procedure is done. However, it adds a bunch of complexity that is only needed if you care which disk holds what content. You mentioned earlier that you don't bother forcing content onto any particular disk, so it doesn't matter if the content is on a different number when you are done.

 

Also, the trailing slash thing is a common error. You forgot to put the slash after the source. The last slash on the destination doesn't matter, but you forgot the important one.

rsync --options /mnt/disk(source number)/ /mnt/disk(destination number)/

http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/2013/02/rsync-to-slash-or-not-to-slash/

 

Thanks for the help! 

 

I don't care which drive is assigned to which slot. As long as the data is safe, it doesn't matter to me. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, senrab said:

The transfer from Disk 3 to Disk 1 has finished but I noticed there are errors on Disk 1.

If everything is working as designed, then what happened was a read error. The data that was supposed to be there was reconstructed from parity, and written back into place, and the write succeeded.

 

If you haven't rebooted since then, the diagnostics might show exactly what happened. In any case, it wouldn't be the worst idea to run a full smart test on that disk.

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