Existing data drives

[x88dually]

Currently populated 57tb on 7 drives. Looking to start using unRaid for first time and looking for an answer.

 

Can i keep the 57tb of data when these 7 drives get installed into unRaid or do i have to wipe them and transfer all 57tb from another pc at 100MB speed ??

Edited December 22, 2019 by x88dually

[JorgeB]

16 minutes ago, x88dually said:

Can i keep the 57tb of data when these 7 drives

No, Unraid needs to format all array and caches devices before use, even if they already use a supported filesystem, that's because Unraid requires drives to be partitioned in a certain way, hence a re-format is needed after that.

[wgstarks]

Depending on the current formatting of the drives you can probably mount them using the Unassigned Devices plug-in and transfer the data one drive at a time.

[x88dually]

Windows has all drives as as there own drive letter, so all drives will go over 1 at a time.  (4) 8tb, 10tb, 12tb, and 5tb.

 

Anyone have an idea how many weeks this will take if i get lucky and transfer at 80MB  ??

[wgstarks]

Can’t you install the drives in your unRAID server as unassigned devices?

 

Edit: Even if you had to install them in an external enclosure, connected via usb, the data would still transfer much faster.

Edited December 22, 2019 by wgstarks

[trurl]

As mentioned you should be able to mount them using Unassigned Devices, then you won't have to work over the network with them.

 

Do you have backups of anything important and irreplaceable? You should regardless of whether you take this next bit of advice or not. If you do the transfer before installing parity it will be able to write the data somewhat faster since parity doesn't have to be updated.

 

Or you could use Turbo write to get faster writes with parity:

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/79454-file-transfer-results-in-error-0x8007003b/

 

Don't cache anything for the initial data load. Cache doesn't have the capacity and it will just get in the way.

 

However, best if you install cache before enabling dockers and VMs so those can get created on cache.

 

As you get each disk's data transferred to the array, you can add it to the array and Unraid will clear it so parity is maintained. Since these disks presumably won't suffer from infant mortality, there is no need to burn them in with preclear. However, parity PLUS ALL disks must be reliably read in order to reliably rebuild a missing disk, so it is important that all disks in the array be reliable. Pay attention to SMART warnings on the Dashboard.

 

If you don't use parity during the initial transfer then you can even avoid the clearing of the disks and just build parity at the end.

 

I don't have any real estimate to give you on writing 57TB, and there will be other things happening during this process that will also take some time. I would expect several days for sure.

[x88dually]

If drives are mounted in unassigned how does unraid protect them ?

Currently a primary and secondary media servers, exact duplicates including hardware.

install cache drives after media get transferred and before dockers/vm's get installed. Got it.

Install parity diskes after media is transferred ?

Did i get all that right ?

[wgstarks]

15 minutes ago, x88dually said:

If drives are mounted in unassigned how does unraid protect them ?

Only drives assigned to the array are parity protected. Any drives that are not assigned won’t be protected by unRAID.

[trurl]

1 hour ago, x88dually said:

before dockers/vm's get installed

Before you even enable docker and VM services.

 

1 hour ago, x88dually said:

Install parity diskes after media is transferred ?

If I understand correctly you have complete backups so leaving parity till after the transfer makes a lot of sense and will make things go faster.

[x88dually]

The 2 servrs i bought have x520-da2's installed, prim dac to current back up media server for 57tb transfer. Will 10g help with transfer speed at all ?

 

So why put in 7 populated media drives in unassigned devices if theres no parity/protection ?

[wgstarks]

7 minutes ago, x88dually said:

why put in 7 populated media drives in unassigned devices if theres no parity/protection ?

It would only be temporary. Would give you much higher transfer speeds to move the data to your unRAID array.

[x88dually]

how does it get into array from unassigned devices ?

 

I dont remember seeing a section in docs about that

Edited December 23, 2019 by x88dually

[wgstarks]

Use cp or rsync command. Or something similar.

[trurl]

You have to copy it yourself. I usually use the builtin Midnight Commander.

[x88dually]

so i buy 57tb's on 7 drives new so i can copy my full drives onto brand new drives into unraid that way ?

[trurl]

I assumed you wanted to reuse the drives.

 

If so then you would need one empty drive, perhaps an existing drive if you could move its contents elsewhere. Make an array with that one drive and format it, copy data from another drive, add and format that already copied drive, repeat.

[x88dually]

SO, i would take.....say my 14tb future parity drive, format it build an array with it, copy a used drive from unass devices thats full onto that 14tb drive. Format the newly empty drive an add to array an populate it from the 14tb in unass devices an do the same for the other 6 drives till array is built 1 drive at a time ?

[x88dually]

wgstarks,

 

sorry i missed your original post and i'm liking the idea. So..TY

souds like it should be quicker then network transfer from wimdows

 

 

wgstarks  and trurl, you guys just  gave me a sigh of relief

Edited December 23, 2019 by x88dually

[trurl]

If you take that "future parity drive", and format it as disk1 in the array, then you could copy the data from one of the other drives that is mounted as an Unassigned Device. But then you talk about copying a 14TB drive to the next drive using Unassigned Devices and I or maybe you are confused at that point.

 

If the 14TB you are talking about copying is that disk1 you already have in the array, then it wouldn't be an Unassigned Device. The "Unassigned" in Unassigned Device refers to disks that are not in the array.

 

Once the disks are in the array and formatted by Unraid, then you can copy and move the files around between them as much as you want. But the disks that haven't been formatted by Unraid yet can only have their data accessed as Unassigned Devices.

 

 

 

[x88dually]

Yeah dont think i explained in my head right

7 media drives and (1) 14tb go into unass devices

1 by 1 i copy everythning onto 14 then back onto drive once its in array, when all is done, then that 14tb drive goes into array as 1 of parity drives.

i think i have it right now ?

 

 

onyly 1 of the 14tb's are bought

Edited December 23, 2019 by x88dually

[trurl]

16 minutes ago, x88dually said:

7 media drives and (1) 14tb go into unass devices

If that 14TB doesn't have any data then it goes into the array as disk1 and gets formatted by Unraid. It is never an Unassigned Device.. Nothing you can do with the Unassigned disks until you have an array disk to start.

 

Then you could just leave it as disk1 and after you get some or even all the other disks copied and assigned to the array you could move disk1 contents to those other disks. Then when you are ready for parity, set a New Config with that disk as parity and all the others as data, and begin parity build.

 

 

[x88dually]

And if i get a sceond 14tb for parity later, thats ok to make as a parity drive after unRAID and arrays been running a while ? correct ?

[trurl]

32 minutes ago, x88dually said:

And if i get a sceond 14tb for parity later, thats ok to make as a parity drive after unRAID and arrays been running a while ? correct ?

yes

[x88dually]

trurl,   what is unSERVER ??

[trurl]

21 minutes ago, x88dually said:

trurl,   what is unSERVER ??

I assume you are referring to my sig.

 

unSERVER is the name of my Unraid server. The "default" name for any Unraid server is "tower", but you can change that in Settings - Identification.

On 1/16/2018 at 11:38 PM, ljm42 said:

Only 'A-Z', 'a-z', '0-9', dashes ('-'), and dots ('.') are allowed, and it must be 15 characters or less.

The rest of that line in my sig is just my specs in very abbreviated form, each section separated by : is enough for a google search to identify the hardware component.

 

And I also have useful links in my sig. Many other users have useful links in their sigs as well, but...

 

For anyone else that might be reading, unfortunately, viewing sigs is disabled by default in this forum software. To enable viewing sigs and edit your own sig, click the dropdown beside your user name at the top right of a forum page, and select Account Settings.

 

And if you had a sig in the old forum software, that sig was imported and you still have it even though you might not be aware of it. It is probably outdated so you should take a look at your own sig.