I recently added a second parity drive 4tb in size.  I was going to use the 4tb I added as well as the first parity drive I already had installed which is 2tb.  At first I did not realize that I would only be able to add disk drives up to 2tb in size, since that is my smallest parity drive.  I have another drive larger than 2tb that I would like to add to my array.  What is the best way to re-assign the 2tb drive and add it as a disk drive?  I recently found this article:  http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Shrink_array   Should I follow: The "Clear Drive Then Remove Drive" Method?  Please point me in the right direction, I appreciate the help.  Thank you.

I don't see this as a case of shrinking the array at all, since that is about winding up with fewer data disks and not really about changing anything about parity assignments.

 

I would just remove the 4TB parity2 disk and use it to replace the 2TB parity1 disk. Then you can just use the normal methods to add any disk up to 4TB as a data disk, including that original 2TB parity disk.

 

Technically you could just run with no parity1 and 4TB parity2 and add any disk up to 4TB as a data disk, but my OCD doesn't like having parity2 with no parity1.

 

Do you have plans to have a parity2 in the end?

When I unassign the 2TB parity, unraid gives me a warning that the disk will be disabled.  This won't cause any issues when I go to add it as a data disk?  I'm still new to unraid so I wasn't sure if I could then add it as data disk after it has been disabled.  

 

Right now I don't have plans to have 2 parity drives.  Eventually I might go that route but storage size is more important to me at this point.  

You can get all these changes at once but before I tell you how,

 

go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete diagnostics zip file to your NEXT post,

 

so we will have some more concrete information to put into the instructions.

Sorry about that, here you go.  I appreciate the help.

cybertron-diagnostics-20200107-1647.zip

Your disks assignments are different than I understood from your original post.

1 hour ago, xNeRv3 said:

I recently added a second parity drive 4tb in size.  I was going to use the 4tb I added as well as the first parity drive I already had installed which is 2tb

I thought you had put the 4TB in the parity2 slot and parity was a 2TB disk. But looks like the assignments were changed more than once in the syslog.

 

It might save me a little time pouring over your syslog if you would post a screenshot of Main - Array Operation.

Well, I did add a second parity drive, but this wasn't the first time I added a new parity.  When I added the 2tb, it stayed in the parity 2 slot.  So when I added the 4tb I have now, it became Parity 1.  My plan changed a few times based on the drives I had available to me.  I bought more which is why I added the 4tb. 

 

My goal is to have 1 parity with the 4TB.  Re-assign the 2TB Parity drive to a disk drive.  Remove the remaining 1TB disk drives, replace them with a 4TB and 2TB.

 

Here is a screenshot:

 

 

Edited January 8, 20206 yr by xNeRv3

1 hour ago, xNeRv3 said:

Remove the remaining 1TB disk drives, replace them with a 4TB and 2TB.

OK. Glad I didn't give you further instructions earlier then. You had been talking about "adding" drives. Now you are talking about "replacing" drives. Totally different concepts. And "removing" doesn't fit into the picture at all.

 

Adding means a new slot, removing means nothing remains in the slot.

 

Replacing means putting a different disk in a slot and letting Unraid rebuild it so it has the same data in that slot, but on a different disk.

 

If I understand correctly now, you want to replace disk1 with a new 4TB disk and replace disk3 with the disk that was assigned as parity2.

 

Is that right?

 

 

 

Yes, that is correct.  Sorry for the confusion.  I didn't give you the whole plan to begin with. 

Stop array

Unassign parity2

Start array

Post new screenshot and diagnostics

Do I want to disable the disk?  That is the only way it will allow me to start the array again after I unassign parity 2.

Edited January 8, 20206 yr by xNeRv3

Post a screenshot

Go to Tools - New Config. Keep all assignments as they are, except unassign parity2. Check the box saying parity is valid and start the array.

 

If you have any questions or something doesn't seem right, post a screenshot.

Thank you very much!  That seemed to do the trick.  I really appreciate your help with this.

So now you want to replace some disks right?

 

Just to make sure there are no misunderstandings:

2 hours ago, trurl said:

Post new screenshot and diagnostics