My current situation: 2 parity drives (2 x 3TB); 6 data drives (3 x 3TB + 3 x 2TB); 1 cache drive (as a "hot" spare, 3TB).  I want to move to: 1 parity drive (8TB); 2 data drives (2 x 8TB); 1 cache drive (3TB, same as now).  Currently, 15TB data drives, of which 5.86 TB is free.  I'd be moving from 15TB to 16TB.

 

Main reasons: one cache drive and one data drive having intermittent errors; less power; once I'm done, I add one more drive, get another 8TB of space; seems cheaper than buying the bare drives, $140 right now for 8TB external drives at Costco.   Also, I currently am maxed out in drive bays, and going to bigger drives means I would have drive bays.

 

I bought 3 Seagate external drives, each 8TB, in case with power supply.  I will take the drives out of these.

 

I'd like to put a sequence of steps here, in case anyone has similar issues, and to ask a few questions.

 

First question: are there any windows tools for preclear, so that I can preclear (and possibly test) the drive while it's still in the external case?

 

Is this the list of steps?

 

1) Go from 2 parity drives to one.

2) Remove the unused parity drive, replace with 8 TB drive

2A) Preclear 8TB drive if not done already (and test?)

3) Replace single 3TB parity drive with 8TB parity, take out 3TB parity drive

3A) Have a free drive bay here, add 8TB and preclear/test

4) Select data drive throwing intermittent errors, take out and replace with 8TB drive

4A) Have a free drive bay here, add 8TB and preclear/test

5) Select another data drive, take out and replace with 8TB drive

-> At this point, the 8TB parity is working and there are two 8TB data drives, but four extra, unnecessary drives. 

6) Copy/move data from "extra" drive to 8TB drive, remove extra drive

7) Repeat #6 for the three other "extra" drives.

 

Does this sound reasonable?

 

Are there any threads/documentation for:

#1, going from 2 parity drives to one;

#6, copying/moving data from "extra" drive to 8TB drive, removing extra drive

 

I will also search for these, and provide links if I find them.  Thank you.

 

 

Me, I'd:

Mount the 2 8TB disks using UD, and copy everything from the current 3TB & 2TB data drives to them.

Remove all current drives, and clear config.

Install the 8TB disks, create array and have parity generate.

Once verified all data is present and intact on new disks, recycle one of the 3TB drives to cache duty.

Edited November 28, 20205 yr by sota

On 11/28/2020 at 10:11 AM, sota said:

Me, I'd:

Mount the 2 8TB disks using UD, and copy everything from the current 3TB & 2TB data drives to them.

Remove all current drives, and clear config.

Install the 8TB disks, create array and have parity generate.

Once verified all data is present and intact on new disks, recycle one of the 3TB drives to cache duty.

Thanks.  That sounds a lot easier than what I was going to do.

 

You'll have to forgive me, but I rarely use my unraid interface and in fact since it runs so well for so long, when I do have to do anything, I have to relearn how to do anything I've done before. I do something with unraid every few years.  So, when you say "mount 2 8TB disks using UD, and copy everything from the current 3TB & 2TB data drives to them", I know that's probably easy to do, but I  don't know how to do that.

 

For instance, what's "UD" and how do I use it (any link would help)?  I'd search, but I can't think of what "UD" means as an acronym.

 

And, to copy, do I just use a windows computer and drag and drop from the current drives to the 2 new 8TB drives?  Or is there something special I have to do?

 

Thank you.

UD stands for Unassigned Devices, a plugin available in the Community Applications.

Edited December 5, 20205 yr by ChatNoir
missing letters :/

along with Unassigned Devices, I'd also install the binhex-krusader container, since it's a file management tool.  You can then use it to copy data between disks directly on your unRAID machine, instead of having to fly data out and back over the network.