JasonMonette Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Is it possible to just to swap out my 1 tb hard drives with larger 2 tb hard drives to increase storage? And if so, what is the proper procedure for doing this? My 15tb server is full. Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Yes, but not all at once. You have to swap out drive one at a time. The procedure is here: un-official unRAID manual - replacing a single disk with a bigger one In your case, you will have to replace your parity drive first. You can then do each data drive, one after another. Also remember to run a parity check after each and every drive replacement. This project will probably take you several weeks of replacing a disk, running a parity check, replacing the next, run another parity check, and so on. Personally, I would just replace drives as needed instead of doing it all at once. It will be less of a time commitment all at once, and you are more likely to be able to save money by waiting for drives to go on sale. Also watch out for all the gotchas related to today's 2 TB drives. Here's the quick and dirty: WD EARS need a jumper on pins 7-8. Seagate LPs need a firmware update. Samsung F4s are incompatible. Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Is it possible to just to swap out my 1 tb hard drives with larger 2 tb hard drives to increase storage? And if so, what is the proper procedure for doing this? My 15tb server is full. First you should probably run a parity check to make sure all drives are in good working order and no problems decide to appear when upgrading a drive. Yes you can but you need to update your parity drive first. Then go one drive at a time to upgrade the rest. Just shut down the computer, pull the current parity drive (which I assume is 1TB), replace it with a 2TB, restart the computer, and then start the array. unRAID will rebuild parity and you will be ready to upgrade a data drive after that. To do that just shut down again, pull the data drive, replace with a 2TB drive, start the computer, let unRAID start and click the start button. unRAID will rebuild the data onto the new drive. Rinse and repeat for any other data drives you want to replace. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 Is it possible to just to swap out my 1 tb hard drives with larger 2 tb hard drives to increase storage? And if so, what is the proper procedure for doing this? My 15tb server is full. It must be done one disk at a time, starting with the parity disk. Step 1. do a parity check to make sure the entire array is OK and not having problems with any existing disk. Then Stop the array, Power down. replace the PARITY drive with a new 2TB parity drive. (You need to do it first, since it must be the largest in the array) Power up. Start the array by pressing "Start" on the unRAID management web-page (You may have to check the I'm sure button under it) It will begin the process of writing parity to the new drive by reading all the other drives. When done calculating parity for the first time press the "Check" button to see if you can read it back successfully. If the "Check" is successful, you can proceed. Then Stop the array, Power down. Replace ONE of the data drives with a new 2TB drive. Power up Start the array by pressing "Start" on the unRAID management web-page (You may have to check the I'm sure button under it) It will begin the process of writing the new data drive by reading all the other drives. When it is complete, press the "Check" button to verify you can read the newly written drive. when the parity check is complete, you can proceed to perform this same series of steps with the next drive you wish to replace. You'll need to replace the parity drive and at least one data drive to gain any space. Beware of the Samsumg F4 series. They ALL have a serious firmware bug that causes them to not properly save data written to them under some conditions. They all need a firmware patch before using them for your data. Joe L. Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Is it possible to just to swap out my 1 tb hard drives with larger 2 tb hard drives to increase storage? And if so, what is the proper procedure for doing this? My 15tb server is full. Rebuilding each disk is a slow way to go IMO. Equivalent to 15 consecutive parity builds. And that is after 15 preclears. You'll be exhausted and watching high-bitrate moves will be jerky. This is what I'd do in this situation. 0. Preclear 8 of the new 2T drives (in another machine). You'll need them at step 6. And keep preclearing (at least one more). 1. Run full parity check 2. Run smart reports on each 1T drive and look for signs of problems (reallocated / pending sectors) 3. Stop the array and backup the config directory on the flash 4. Power down 5. Pull out 8 of the 1T drives (including parity) leaving 7 1T data drives 6. Add 8 2T drives to server, power up server 7. Go to devices tab and assign the array to be the 2T drives only and ALSO assign the 1T disks to be array disks. Do NOT assign a PARITY disk (slot should be empty). 8. Go to telnet prompt and run initconfig command 9. Start the array. 10. All 2T disks should show unformatted. Press format. Allow format to complete (~5-10 mins) 11. Copy data from 1T drives to the 2T drives. DO NOT WRITE TO ANY OF THE 1T DRIVES!!! (You can copy from multiple 1T drives in parallel. Just don't copy from 2 1T drives to one 2T drive at the same time - it will be slower than doing them seqentially) 12. Stop array / Power down 13. Remove 7 1T drives from array, add remaining 7 1T drives (don't need to put parity back). 14. Run steps 7-9 and 11 (not step 10) 15. When all disks have been copied to the 2T drives, stop array, shut down, remove remaining 1T disks 16. Add more precleared 2T disks (at least 1 to become parity). (There is no need to add storage you don't need to the new array. You can keep them precleared and ready to be added when needed) 17. Power up, stop array (if it starts) 18. Assign parity and other newly added precleared data drives to the array 19. Run initconfig command (last time!) 20. Start array (parity will build) 21. Newly added disks will be unformatted. VERIFY THAT ONLY THEY ARE SHOWING UNFORMATTED. If so, press format any time. 22. When parity completes building, RUN A FULL PARITY CHECK. (Parity build needs to be checked before you trust it). AM I PROTECTED?: By keeping the backup of the config file, and diligently NOT writing to any 1T drive, you maintain the ability to reconstruct the old array should you have an unexpected failure of one of the 1T drives. (This will be extremely unlikely after doing a full parity check to kick things off). You are never without some form of parity protection of your data. Once preclears are done - which granted will take a while but no way to avoid it - you should be able to do this cutover in ~4 days, instead of ~2 weeks! Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 That will work too, but I figured he'd not replace ALL 15 disks at one time, but as he needed space. By changing out the parity drive and 1 data drive he gains 1TB of space until he can find a good sale on another 2TB drive. By swapping in the second data drive in he has gained 2TB of storage, a 13% increase of his old 15TB to 17TB. Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 That will work too, but I figured he'd not replace ALL 15 disks at one time, but as he needed space. By changing out the parity drive and 1 data drive he gains 1TB of space until he can find a good sale on another 2TB drive. By swapping in the second data drive in he has gained 2TB of storage, a 13% increase of his old 15TB to 17TB. Where's the challenge in that! Swapping out a single drive for another is well documented. Quote Link to comment
JasonMonette Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 Wow, thanks for the great info. I have a lot to go over. One last question......can you recommend a 2tb drive to use? Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Wow, thanks for the great info. I have a lot to go over. One last question......can you recommend a 2tb drive to use? 7200 RPM - Hitachi "GREEN" - WD EADS, Seagate LP (512 byte sector ones), WD EARS STAY CLEAR OF 2T SAMSUNGS! (At least for now) Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Slight optimization of procedure below. Now the 1T drives are added to the array along with the 2T drives. Makes mounting them outside of the array unnecessary (some users have difficulty with this part). You just have to run initconfig more times. Quote Link to comment
JasonMonette Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 Where is the slight optimization? Quote Link to comment
DGalt Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 Also watch out for all the gotchas related to today's 2 TB drives. Here's the quick and dirty: WD EARS need a jumper on pins 7-8. Seagate LPs need a firmware update. Samsung F4s are incompatible. Uh...since when have the F4s been incompatible. I know there is an issue with them requiring a firmware update, but I have 3 in my rig and everything is working properly. Quote Link to comment
Rajahal Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 Uh...since when have the F4s been incompatible. I know there is an issue with them requiring a firmware update, but I have 3 in my rig and everything is working properly. Consider yourself lucky. More info here. I personally wouldn't trust these drives with anything important. Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 Also watch out for all the gotchas related to today's 2 TB drives. Here's the quick and dirty: WD EARS need a jumper on pins 7-8. Seagate LPs need a firmware update. Samsung F4s are incompatible. Uh...since when have the F4s been incompatible. I know there is an issue with them requiring a firmware update, but I have 3 in my rig and everything is working properly. They would not have shown any outward indication of errors. They would have just not written all your data to the disk. Only way to know for sure is to perform a read-only parity check by typing on the command line: /root/mdcmd check NOCORRECT It will check for errors but not correct them. Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted December 17, 2010 Share Posted December 17, 2010 Where is the slight optimization? The update has you put the 1T drives in the array while you are copying to the 2T drives. This means you don't have to worry about mounting the 1T disks outside the array, which can be tricky. Since you are not adding a parity disk, it really doesn't matter either way. Quote Link to comment
JasonMonette Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 Would this one work? Or is there a better choice? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298 Wow, thanks for the great info. I have a lot to go over. One last question......can you recommend a 2tb drive to use? 7200 RPM - Hitachi "GREEN" - WD EADS, Seagate LP (512 byte sector ones), WD EARS STAY CLEAR OF 2T SAMSUNGS! (At least for now) Quote Link to comment
Joe L. Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Would this one work? Or is there a better choice? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298 Wow, thanks for the great info. I have a lot to go over. One last question......can you recommend a 2tb drive to use? 7200 RPM - Hitachi "GREEN" - WD EADS, Seagate LP (512 byte sector ones), WD EARS STAY CLEAR OF 2T SAMSUNGS! (At least for now) It is one of my favorites... As an alternative, if you have no need for the 7200 RPM and want to be a bit more "green" I also like these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475 as they are quite a bit less expensive and work very well too. (newegg limit is 5 at the sale price, but the Hitachi $10 rebate is limited to 2 per product.) Quote Link to comment
SSD Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 It is one of my favorites... As an alternative, if you have no need for the 7200 RPM and want to be a bit more "green" I also like these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475 as they are quite a bit less expensive and work very well too. (newegg limit is 5 at the sale price, but the Hitachi $10 rebate is limited to 2 per product.) B&H has the 7200 RPM version on sale for $108 with free shipping. Looks like boxed retail version. You might go for 2 of these (one for parity and one for a fast data disk) and buy the rest green drives that Joe L. has linked. Hard to go wrong with the current Hitachi lineup - forum members have had extremely good luck with them. Quote Link to comment
JasonMonette Posted April 15, 2011 Author Share Posted April 15, 2011 What about these? They are on sale at tigerdirect until tomorrow. Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green Hard Drive - 2TB, 3.5", SATA-3G 79.99 Quote Link to comment
prostuff1 Posted April 15, 2011 Share Posted April 15, 2011 They will work fine also, though I like the Hitachi CoolSpin drives the best at the moment. It really is just personal preference. The only drive I try to stay away from right now are the Samsung drives... because of the firmware fiasco they had. Quote Link to comment
lionelhutz Posted April 15, 2011 Share Posted April 15, 2011 I see WD and Hitachi drive regularily sell for $65 go $70 so that price is still high (much like most of TigerDirects pricing IMO). Peter Quote Link to comment
DoeBoye Posted April 15, 2011 Share Posted April 15, 2011 +1 for Hitachi 5K3000 drives! Also, you might want to consider buying 3TB drives instead of 2TB (The 5K3000 comes in both flavours).... Especially if space is an issue... You need to trick unRaid into thinking they are smaller for now (search the forum on how to do this), but once support for larger than 2.2TB drives comes to unRaid, you'll be 1TB ahead of the game... I have 4 5K3000 drives now in my array (Well, 2 *in* the array, and 2 as cold spares), and they run faster (slightly) and cooler then any of the rest (WD Greens and a couple of 7200RMP Seagates). Also, all 4 precleared without a hitch. Personally, I've lost confidence in the WD EARS drives. I'll be sticking with the 5K3000s until WD decides to EOL them (WD bought Hitachi Global Storage recently)... They go on sale pretty much every week for $69 for the 2TB guys, and the 3TB ones are dropping in price regularly. I bought mine for $129, and I believe I just saw them in Good Deals for $110... Quote Link to comment
JasonMonette Posted April 18, 2011 Author Share Posted April 18, 2011 Should I get the faster 7200rmp drives? This is a movie server that streams Blu-Ray and dvd through out the house. What do you think? Quote Link to comment
DoeBoye Posted April 18, 2011 Share Posted April 18, 2011 My array is almost all green drives, and streams 1080p uncompressed blu-ray content (20 mbps+) without a hitch over gigabit ethernet. The network connection will be the limiting factor in your array, not the rotational speed of your drives. I would stick with the Green drives for better price, lower heat output, and lower power consumption... Quote Link to comment
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