My current setup includes two 8tb parity drives and a mixture of 8tb and 6tb data drives. One of my 6tb drives died today, and I'd like to get it replaced as soon as possible. Problem is, the only drive I can get a hold of quickly is 10tb, which is obviously larger than my parity drives.

 

Ideally, the end-goal would be to move one of my 8tb parity drives to the now-vacant data slot, and have the larger 10tb take its place as parity.  I'm just conflicted on the best way to get there.  Two ideas I have are:

 

1. Reassign one 8tb parity to the vacant data slot, rebuild from the parity drive that's left, then insert the 10tb drive as the second parity. This worries me because I lose dual-parity during the rebuild.
2. Unassign the 8tb parity and replace it with the 10tb. Sync parity, then assign the 8tb drive to the vacant data slot. This allows for dual-parity during the rebuild, but it also means that the sync happens with a degraded array.

 

Which of these two options is the lesser evil here? Or is there a magic third option that further minimizes risk that I'm not thinking of?

Edited August 7, 20205 yr by gstacks13

 

10 minutes ago, gstacks13 said:

magic third option

https://wiki.unraid.net/The_parity_swap_procedure

 

Note the array will be offline during the "parity copy".