Replace Drive with Parity Drive Question

[DigitalDivide]

Hi, just wanted to get some assistance on how to properly replace an existing drive in my array with my old parity drive. I just replaced my parity drive with a larger 6tb drive up from a 4tb one. I have disk 2 in my array that is 2tb. I'd like to remove the 2tb drive and replace it with the 4tb parity drive.

 

Do I just remove the disk in drive 2 and pop in the 4tb one? I'm assuming it will prompt me to format it then rebuild the missing data. Is that correct?

[trurl]

1 hour ago, DigitalDivide said:

Do I just remove the disk in drive 2 and pop in the 4tb one? I'm assuming it will prompt me to format it then rebuild the missing data. Is that correct?

NO. FORMAT is NEVER part of a rebuild.

 

Lots of confusion in the world about the meaning of FORMAT apparently. FORMAT is a write operation. It writes an empty filesystem to the disk. That is what it has always done in every operating system you have ever used. When you perform this write operation on a disk in the parity array, Unraid treats it just like it does any write operation, by updating parity. So after FORMAT of a disk in the parity array, parity agrees the disk has an empty filesystem.

 

Just shut down, install the 4TB disk, assign it to the drive 2 slot, and start the array to begin rebuilding. FORMAT does not happen and would be pointless since it will overwrite every bit of the disk so its contents agree with parity, which should result in the contents of the former disk.

 

If for some reason (unmountable filesystem) it presents you with the opportunity to format, DO NOT DO IT. You must repair the filesystem instead. FORMAT will just give you an empty filesystem.

[DigitalDivide]

ok thanks