Hello,

 

My unraid server was initially set up as follows: 

Parity - 6tb HDD (a)

Data Disk 1 - 6tb HDD (b)

Data Disk 2 - 2tb HDD

Cache Disk - 500gb SSD

 

Data Disk 1 seems to have failed, so I am operating off of the Parity drive. 

I just purchased two 10tb HDDs to replace Data Disk 1 and to upgrade the capacity of the Parity drive since the 6tb HDD (a) will no longer be large enough. 

 

I understand that I can follow the Parity Swap procedure (https://wiki.unraid.net/The_parity_swap_procedure) and replace Data Disk 1 with one new 10tb HDD drive and then copy the parity information to that drive and then reassign the 6tb HDD (a) parity drive as the new Data Disk 1. 

 

Question: 

During the procedure, when I open the box to pull out the failed drive, can I go ahead and insert my second new 10 tb HDD and add it to the array so that after i run the COPY procedure to copy the parity data to 10 tb HDD (a), I can then start the array and at the same time as the Data Disk 1 is being rebuilt from Parity, add the new 10tb HDD (b) to the array? 

 

My end goal is below, but I'm trying to see if it's possible to save some time and not have to open up the box and mess with cable management twice, etc. My server is in a relatively hard to access spot with tight cable runs, etc. I just don't know if Unraid is going to get confused by two new drives being added at the same time, and the various operations required to migrate the parity data and reconstruct the data disk. 

 

Parity - 10tb HDD (a)

Data Disk 1 - 6tb HDD (a)

Data Disk 2 - 2tb HDD 

Data Disk 3 - 10tb HDD (b)

Cache Disk - 500 gb SSD

Removed/Replaced - 6tb HDD (b)

 

Apologies if I am missing something very obvious. This is the first time I have had to swap / add a drive since I built my first Unraid server last year. 

 

THANKS!

 

Basically no, you can connect the new disk to the server when you open it, but just leave it unassigned until the parity swap finishes, then go ahead and add the new disk to the array.

Thanks Johnnie.Black. Makes sense. So it's ok for it to be physically installed but unassigned when all the rest of the activities are going on, but I cannot assign it as a data disk until the swap is completed. 

Thanks so much!