Upgrading Drives/Array

[BrandonG777]

I'm currently running 4 x 2TB data drives and a 4TB parity drive (8TB array). I have recently purchased 3 x 8TB drives to completely replace my existing drives. What would be the best method for this migration?

 

I was thinking dumping all of the data to one of the new 8TB drives, then pull the existing drives, recreate a new 8TB array, import my data and then clear that drive and add it to the array. Perhaps, I could format the new drive as XFS, transfer data to that and then just import that drive into unRAID? I know there are lots of ways to go about this but just figured someone has already been down this road.

 

I also have an additional thumb drive. I was thinking it would probably be a good idea to make a copy of my unRAID USB drive before I start this project.

[trurl]

The usual way to upsize disks is to replace and rebuild, one at a time. You will have to start with parity.

[trurl]

Is your goal to end up with only 1x8TB parity plus 2x8TB data? Shrinking the array is a little more complicated and some ways may be more efficient than others.

 

How full are your existing disks?

[BrandonG777]

Yes, end goal is 1X8TB parity+2x8TB data. existing array is 8TB total with 2.74TB free.

[BrandonG777]

20 minutes ago, trurl said:

The usual way to upsize disks is to replace and rebuild, one at a time. You will have to start with parity.

Seems like a lot of unnecessary rebuilding, one at a time, if all of the drives are getting replaced. I was thinking this would just be an excellent opportunity to just start with a fresh array and seems like it would be much faster to transfer the data out and just import, if that's possible.

[Decto]

11 minutes ago, BrandonG777 said:

Seems like a lot of unnecessary rebuilding, one at a time, if all of the drives are getting replaced. I was thinking this would just be an excellent opportunity to just start with a fresh array and seems like it would be much faster to transfer the data out and just import, if that's possible.

If you have a spare slot, you could:

 

backup the flash drive  (Just in case)

Add one new disk as unassigned (XFS)

Copy all the data to it

Remove all the other drives including parity

Add the remaing 8TB drives 

New config with the data drive + 1 other and the new parity

Start and let it build parity

 

You would retain all of your existing drives so if you have any issues, you can reinstall them and just restore the flash drive image and you are back where you started.

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Decto

[BrandonG777]

52 minutes ago, Decto said:

If you have a spare slot, you could:

 

backup the flash drive  (Just in case)

Add one new disk as unassigned (XFS)

Copy all the data to it

Remove all the other drives including parity

Add the remaing 8TB drives 

New config with the data drive + 1 other and the new parity

Start and let it build parity

 

You would retain all of your existing drives so if you have any issues, you can reinstall them and just restore the flash drive image and you are back where you started.

 

Thank you. This is what I had in mind, just wanted someone else to validate my thinking. 

[BrandonG777]

Using unassigned drives plugin and rsync -avPH /source /destination everything went exactly as planned. Easiest NAS migration ever and server was still totally usable while the parity was rebuilding. New drives also seemed to resolve my kernel panics. Happy days!

 

The only issue with the method I went with here is the it put all of my data on one drive. I will probably use the unbalance plugin to redistribute the data more evenly between the two new data drives.

 

Thanks for assistance guys.

[trurl]

1 hour ago, BrandonG777 said:

The only issue with the method I went with here is the it put all of my data on one drive. I will probably use the unbalance plugin to redistribute the data more evenly between the two new data drives.

Assuming all 8TB data disks, default allocation of highwater for user shares would go to first disk until it is half full. There is no reason to redistribute.