Parity swap procedure - confirming before I start

[Idaho121]

Before I upgrade my 10TB parity drive to 12TB and replace a 4TB drive with that 10TB drive, just want to make sure that this is still the proper procedure. It makes sense to me, but wanted to confirm before mucking with my drives!

[trurl]

Is your 4TB drive failing or questionable, or are you just wanting to upsize?

 

Parity swap isn't necessary for healthy disks, you can just replace parity, then after parity is rebuilt, just replace the data disk with the former parity disk and let it rebuild.

 

You might still want to do it the parity swap way, but just be aware that your array is offline during the parity copy part of the procedure, since parity cannot be allowed to change while it is being copied.

 

 

[Idaho121]

I'd rather not have it offline as long as that process entails, so I'm all for an alternative.

 

To be clear, process for this if I already have the new drive in the system, precleared, would be:

1) Turn off array

2) Unassign 10TB disk from parity

3) Assign 12TB disk to parity

4) Turn array back on

5) Let it rebuild

6) Once rebuilt, turn off array

7) Unassign 4TB drive

8 ) Assign 10TB drive to that drive

9) Turn array back on and let it rebuild

?

[Frank1940]

And do not use that old 4TB data drive for anything else until everything is back up and running to your satisfaction!!!  (That drive is an insurance policy.)

[Idaho121]

And I can write to the array while it's rebuilding parity?

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, Idaho121 said:

And I can write to the array while it's rebuilding parity?

You can but performance will be degraded if you do so until parity rebuild completes so you do not want to write any significant amount.

 

[Idaho121]

It'd be running Plex and Deluge (but Deluge writes to the Cache drive and I have Mover off until the rebuild is done), so should be good!