So I have my Unraid setup and I just ordered 2 more 8TB drives and want to upgrade my 6TB drives. I have done this on a few already but everytime I lose the data on the drives.

 

I know how to swap the drives and all the instructions by Unraid.

 

Issue is I dont have RAID on my drives and seems all my drives have data spread across all the drives. I am worried i am going to lose the Data on the drives i want to swap out for bigger ones. How can i prevent losing the data and when i swap the drive and let it do its thing. I also will be doing Pre-Clear First as these are External Drives going to be Shucked.

 

Any help would be great. I am still learning Unraid but I love the system.

1 minute ago, CrazyBoyS said:

all the instructions by Unraid.

Do you have a link to that?

 

Can you explain exactly what you have done before? 

 

Can't understand why you would have a problem, Unraid makes this very easy and I have done it many times. 

I searched all the forums and that's why i am asking this question.

 

I followed Unraid's Instructions to the T

 

Stop the array

Unassign the old drive if still assigned (to unassign, set it to No Device)

Power down

[ Optional ] Pull the old drive (you may want to leave it installed for Preclearing or testing)

Install the new drive

Power on

Assign the new drive in the slot of the old drive

Go to the Main -> Array Operation section

Put a check in the Yes, I'm sure checkbox (next to the information indicating the drive will be rebuilt), and click the Start button

The rebuild will begin, with hefty disk activity on all drives, lots of writes on the new drive and lots of reads on all other drives

All of the contents of the old drive will be copied onto the new drive, making it an exact replacement, except possibly with more capacity than the old drive.

 

That's why it is weird. I have had this the last 2 times I upgraded a drive. Thing is I did not pre-clear the drive BEFORE plugging in as Pre-Clear script would not see my drive properly ( Realized needed to re-format it first for Unraid to see it. )

 

The first time i did this I didn't have any issues and this is why I got Unraid for this exact reason. It sucks restoring lost files etc from backups.

 

What was the result of the rebuild? Did you ever agree to format anything? What version Unraid? 

When I did my last 2 Hd swaps i lost everything in the drive slot i upgraded.

 

I am running Version: 6.8.3

 

I agree to the format when it sees the drive i plug in.

 

Format is a write operation. It writes an empty filesystem to the disk. This is what format does on any operating system you have ever used.

 

Any write operation in the parity array updates parity. So if you format a disk in the parity array, parity agrees it has an empty filesystem. Rebuilding an empty filesystem results in an empty filesystem.

 

Format is NEVER part of a rebuild.

 

Unless you are replacing an unmountable disk, format isn't even an option.

 

If you have an unmountable disk you need to repair the filesystem, preferably before replacing the disk, but you can also repair after rebuilding as long as you didn't format the disk.

 

 

Before you do anything else, preferably with the array started

Go to Tools - Diagnostics and attach the complete Diagnostics ZIP file to your NEXT post in this thread.

Well this is fixed. 

 

Just replaced 2 disks and did not lose anything.

 

I must have did something wrong last 2 times.

 

Sorry for a wasted post.

 

15 hours ago, CrazyBoyS said:

Sorry for a wasted post.

Hopefully it was an instructive thread.