Unraid v6.8.3 New user, did I mess up my array already

[Skolli]

Good afternoon, just hoping for the smart kids to explain something to me.  I am setting up my first build and want to make sure I did not pooch the whole thing already.  After watching videos and reading tutorials I decided to put the parity drive in last as I have about 26 TB of data from a windows based plex server to transfer and apparently it goes faster without.  I put two new 10tb drives in to start, assigned them to the array and formatted them.  I was under the impression it would do a clear on them but I have since learned it wont with no parity drive installed (I think anyway).  I ran a Read-check through the main dashboard (which I have learned is also probably useless) because for some dumb reason I assumed that would zero the drives. 

 

Anyway...I mounted my old drives with the unassigned devices plug-in and started transferring with MC (tried Krusader but it was slow as molasses).  Everything went splendidly.  So far I have copied a 10 tb (future parity) and two 4 tb's.  So I stopped the array and added the two 4's, as I have one more drive I will need to transfer off of, and of course I get the option to format.  It's at this point I am starting to become uncertain.

 

So I am now assuming that none of my drives have been cleared.  So what happens when I add a parity drive after copying all of my data to the array? I think I have a basic understanding of parity (thanks spaceinvader 1 and the forums) but I am now wondering if building the parity last will overwrite my drives.  I am hoping to figure this out now as I still can start over and not lose anything but I am getting to the point of no return.  Any help would be much appreciated.

 

As a side note, I do understand the importance of offsite back-ups.  Anything important is backed up multiple places, but the other 20 or so TB is strictly media and although not essential, would be a huge pain in the ass to re-aquire.

[trurl]

Sounds like you have nothing to worry about.

 

Building parity will simply calculate parity by reading all other disks and write the result to the parity disk. Since parity is calculated last in your scenario, it will be in sync with all other disks.

 

Clearing disks is only about keeping existing parity when you add a disk to a new slot. A clear disk is all zeros and so doesn't change the parity calculation.

[Skolli]

Thanks so much pal I appreciate the confirmation.  It makes sense when you phrase it that way.

[SeeGee]

In a parity rebuild operation, all data drives are kinda treated as read only. The only disk where anything is written is the parity drive itself. Your data drives in the array will be untouched.