I am coming to the end of copying files to my different shares for my new server build. I have only data discs in my system right now and plan on adding my a cache drive and two parity drives to the system after all files are done copying. I plan on having 2 8TB parity drives along with 2 8tb data, 5 4tb data and 3 3tb data drives for the time being. This will give me 45TB of usable storage.

 

After copying all the files and cleaning up any junk, my plan is to stop the array then assign the two 8tb parity disc (already pre-cleared) and 1tb cache SSD (already precleared) to the array and start the array. After I start the array, what should I do next? Will the system automatically copy the files to the parity drives and move files around to the other disks? I have spent three days copying files and don't want to mess it up.

 

Any help is much appreciated.

Edited July 17, 20205 yr by stepmback

Parity does not contain any files, it is not a backup. When you start after adding parity it will build parity. It won't move any files, why should it? 

 

Parity is a very common concept in computers and communications, and it is basically the same idea wherever it is used. Parity is just an extra bit that allows a missing bit to be calculated from all the other bits. 

 

The contents of a missing disk can be calculated from parity PLUS all other disks. Dual parity allows 2 missing disks to be calculated. 

Don't be alarmed if your parity build is taking a long time. 10s of hours is normal. 

Thanks... I figured it would take a long time.