I have 5/6 Bays in use on my Dell Server:

 

Parity:

12TB 

Data:

10TB

6TB

6TB

4TB

 

I want to retire the 4TB Drive.  I 14TB Drive in Slot 6, it is Pre-cleared and nearly complete with a Parity Sync as Parity Drive 2.

 

When the Parity Sync completes I want to:

Pull 4TB drive and replace it with 10TB Parity Drive 1.

Make 14TB Parity Drive 2 be Parity Drive 1.

 

Is this the right way to go?  When this is complete I want keep 1 Slot open.

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, a12vman said:

Make 14TB Parity Drive 2 be Parity Drive 1.

That will mean rebuilding parity. The two slots are not equivalent.

 

How confident are you in the health of your drives right now?

I did the parity sync on drive 2 so that I didn't have my array unprotected during the process.

 

I am confident in the parity I have on the 10TB drive.

 

Are you saying that I will have to do this again when 14TB becomes the one and only parity drive?

 

1 minute ago, a12vman said:

Are you saying that I will have to do this again when 14TB becomes the one and only parity drive?

Yes if you want to change the parity drive back to parity1.     The alternative is to continue with parity2 and without parity1 in which case it will not need resending.

Is there any downside to doing this?

 

Makes me wonder how many are running with dual parity vs single parity.

I stopped the array after the parity sync completed on 14TB in the Parity 2 Slot.

 

I tried:

Select "No Device" for Parity 2,  

Select "No Device" for Parity

Select 14TB drive as Parity

Result was arrray start button was disabled.

 

Lesson learned. - big waste of time trying to do Parity Sync in Parity 2.

 

I am now doing Parity Sync on 14TB Drive after making 12TB Parity drive as an unassigned Device

and then making 14TB drive as one & only Parity Drive.

 

Now I get to wait for another Parity Sync to complete before I can remove & reassign Data Drive 2 to

the 12TB Drive.

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, a12vman said:

Lesson learned. - big waste of time trying to do Parity Sync in Parity 2.

Only for OCD. Unraid is perfectly happy to run with parity2 and no parity1. You have the same level as protection as having just parity1 assigned. The downsides besides the OCD of having parity1 empty is that parity2 is not data slot position agnostic like parity1, and parity2 takes a bit more CPU power to compute.

 

So, you very well could have completed your move as planned, as long as you would be content with an empty parity1 slot and an occupied parity2. Nothing wrong there, just not as tidy visually.