I currently have an unraid array with 7 disks and 2 parities (5TB).  Tomorrow I'm receiving 6 14TB Drives that I want to use instead.

 

I currently run several docker containers so my thought was to use a trial unraid on another system to create an array and copy over all the data.  Once that is complete I would move them over to my licensed copy as the actual array so there would as little downtime as possible.

 

Is this possible or is there a way to replace the drives (including parity) without much downtime?

 

Thanks

You can replace/rebuild each to a larger disk one (or two since dual parity) at a time, starting with parity disks. 

 

But transfer might be faster if you don't have much data. 

 

Replace/rebuild would be simpler. 

I have very little data on the existing array... Was just trying things out...  Somewhere around 2TB. 

 

To Transfer:

1. Setup Trial License with all the disks setup like I want in the new system. 
2. Copy all the files from the existing array to the new array 
3. Shutdown both servers
4. Remove the disks from the existing server
5. Put the new drives in the existing server
6. Start up the existing server
7. I'm assuming it will see the new drives and mount automatically???

I'm really not sure about any of this tbh but especially #7.  Will it see the array from the trial or will I need to configure it?  Will this work? Are there any steps I am missing?

 

Thanks

 

 

6 hours ago, bhuggins said:

I'm assuming it will see the new drives and mount automatically???

It will see the new drives, and since they are not the drives it is expecting, you will have to New Config / Trust Parity. Be very sure you don't assign a data disk to any parity slot.