Planning to move to new server

[RoboRick]

I am migrating from an old SuperMicro server to a shiny new poweredge r440. the challenge is the new server has less slots (1U vs 2U). If someone could review my steps here Id appreciate it. After the move i will be putting in 14tb drives.

 

On SM Server:
I have 5 10TB drives, 1 Parity, 1 ssd cache
Currently using 26TB of space

 

On Poweredge Server:
BOSS card with M2 SSD will be my new cache.
My unraid parity 10tb, and three 10tb drives will be destined for this server.

 

Steps:

1. On SM server
   1. change all shares to Yes for Cache.
   2. Stop all dockers, turn off autostart, change settings to not start array after booting.
   3. Run Mover to move all cache data
   4. Change all shares to No for Cache.
   5. Screenshot drives on Main page
   6. Shutdown
2. On PE Server
   1. Insert USB Unraid
   2. Insert 1 Parity and 3 Data drives
   3. Power up server
   4. Assign the disks as they were in SM server
   5. Let unraid rebuild parity
      1. during parity build:
      2. modify shares to cache prefered or only based on previous config
      3. start dockers and change to autostart

Please let me know if i missed a step or any concerns with this process. I appreciate it. I do have nextcloud that encrypts the files so im not sure if what im doing will mess with any of that.

[trurl]

13 minutes ago, RoboRick said:

1.2. Stop all dockers

You must actually disable dockers in Settings - Docker and the same for Settings VM Manager since these services will still have open (unmovable) files even if you stop the individual dockers/VMs

[RoboRick]

2 minutes ago, trurl said:

You must actually disable dockers in Settings - Docker and the same for Settings VM Manager since these services will still have open (unmovable) files even if you stop the individual dockers/VMs

Awesome! Thank you!

[172pilot]

I thought because UnRaid recognized the drives by serial number now, all you had to do is move everything to the new motherboard/machine and boot up the same USB?

 

If I dont want to make any drive changes during my move, will it "just work"?

 

Is there any case where the disk controller being different may confuse things?  (Assuming no RAID interfering?)

 

I'm about to move my drives from a really old home built computer to a slightly less really old Supermicro rack mount box I got and want to be ready, but it's not really possible to back up 24tb before the move.  Any help/experience would be greatly appreciated!

-Steve

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, 172pilot said:

If I dont want to make any drive changes during my move, will it "just work"?

In the scenario above, the disk configuration (cache specifically) and number of disks was changing.  If you are swapping all disks "as-is" with no change to system configuration, your migration scenario is easier.

 

Personally, I have swapped motherboards/CPU/RAM many times (including moving to a new case) while changing nothing with the array and cache disk configuration and unRAID just booted as always on the new hardware.

 

It gets trickier if VMs are involved and hardware pass through assignments are involved.  An MB swap could involve some of those changing (with both MB and expansion card hardware) and could require VM reconfiguration.

 

Disk controllers only become an issue if somehow disk serial number reporting is modified by a hardware change.  This can happen with backplanes or disk cages.  That is usually not an issue with just a change to different MB ports and most HBAs.

 

Take a picture of your current disk assignments and serial numbers in case there is an issue in the swap.

 

I recently upgraded to a new MB/CPU/RAM and retained the same HBA I was using with the prior configuration.  All disks were recognized in the new setup with no changes at all.

[172pilot]

Thanks..  I think I'm going to be brave enough to do this...  🙂  I have an old tower I built in 2014 with only 5 hot swap drive bays and I got an old SuperMicro rack mount chassis with 6 hot swaps.  That'll let me extend the life a bit longer before having to spend "real money" on all new drives!

I dont use any traditional VMs on UnRaid, but I do have docker containers running so I'll have to keep an eye on those.

 

I'll take a picture of the running config before I do anything!  Thanks for the shot of confidence!  I've been using unraid for at least 10 years, but it's been so reliable I almost never touch it!!

 

-Steve

[172pilot]

Well..  I did it....  And it worked fine..  Thanks for the advice and confidence.  I moved from an AMD based home-built mini-tower to an old 2-U SuperMicro with dual [old] xeon processors.  It booted back up, and did NOT mount the raid right away (I assume it did that because the disks weren't in the same slots?) but after I made sure it was seeing all the disks, I just clicked start RAID, and it worked great.  Now I have 6x hot-swap chassis instead of 5...  And just in time - I only have 240gb free out of 24tb.  Time to go drive shopping!

 

-Steve

[Hoopster]

17 hours ago, 172pilot said:

Well..  I did it....  And it worked fine..

👍Glad it went well for you.