Upgrading Parity Drive


Recommended Posts

Currently have a 6TB parity drive and needing to upgrade to an 8TB parity drive for the new data drives I am adding to my array.  

 

Question, should I unplug my old parity drive and then plug in my new parity drive and select it in configuration to rebuild, or should I be able to just stop the array, switch the parity drive to the new drive and start the array again to have it rebuild the parity?  If you could help in the steps so that I don't screw this up, as I have 40 TB of data that I do not want to lose.

 

Thanks,

Nate

Link to comment

Absolutely agree with Frank.   BEFORE you do anything, run a parity check and confirm all is well before you start.

 

Then you can Stop the array;  unassign the parity drive;  and restart the array so it shows that parity is "missing".

Then shut down; replace the parity drive with the new one;  and reboot the array -- when you Start it there will be a checkbox to click on confirming that rebuilding is what you want to do ... just check that and then it will update to the new parity drive.

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, garycase said:

... confirm all is well before you start.

 

This means pull SMART reports for all drives in the array, looking for reallocated sectors, pending sectors, or any attributes indicating failing now or in the past. If you see SMART issues and have questions, ask and someone can help you interpret.

 

Link to comment

If they are all like this, you are good to go.  You are basically looking for Attributes #5, 196, 197, 198, and 199 to be all zeros.  (IF they are not, ask back as some of these, in some cases, can be non-zero and the drive still be good.  Also, #199 is not a disk error per se but is usually an indicator of a cabling or controller issue.)

Link to comment

Thank you Frank1940, they are all like the above.  Now I just have to wait on my power cable order since I didn't realize I was out of Sata power connectors.  Then I can start replacing the drive and adding new ones to the array.

 

Edited by nate
Link to comment
7 minutes ago, nate said:

Thank you Frank1940, they are all like the above.  Now I just have to wait on my power cable order since I didn't realize I was out of Sata power connectors.  Then I can start replacing the drive and adding new ones to the array.

 

 

Thought I was the only one who always forgot to buy that one essential component..... whatever I do, there's always one thing missing.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi folks,

 

here´s a newbie from Germany. Have my stuff already prepared, but didn´t start with the installation. Just want to get important informations in this forum. In the past I used Openmediavault, but now I´ll give unRAID a try. So in Openmediavault you can use Snapraid for parity and mergerfs for pooling, something similar or the same thing in unRAID. I followed the instruction of a member in the official forum of openmediavault to replace the parity drive really easy. I have an external USB-Chassis with 2 slots, capable to copy one disk to another completely without a PC running. The chassis will make a 1:1 copy. After this it is easy to boot up GParted in a live system to adapt the partition on the new disk, for example resize from 2 TB to 4 TB. The whole process (copy and resize) is really quick. 

 

Would this be an option on unRAID?

 

Have a nice weekend. 

Link to comment
18 minutes ago, hitman2158 said:

Would this be an option on unRAID?

I suppose if you wanted to go that far out of your way something similar could be done, but generally it's MUCH easier to just power down the array, remove the old parity drive, insert the new one, boot up, assign the new parity disk and rebuild parity automatically. No need to go through any complex drive copy machinations, and your files are available the entire time.

 

Also, on unraid there is no file system on the parity drive, it doesn't contain any files. You may want to read the wiki to get familiar with how unraid uses parity before you jump in with incorrect assumptions and hurt yourself.

Link to comment
4 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

I suppose if you wanted to go that far out of your way something similar could be done

Not only is it more complicated than necessary, but I would further say that approach isn't tested at all and possibly wouldn't produce correct results. unRAID is not Openmediavault.

 

7 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

You may want to read the wiki to get familiar with how unraid uses parity before you jump in with incorrect assumptions and hurt yourself.

 

Link to comment
28 minutes ago, hitman2158 said:

Hi folks,

 

here´s a newbie from Germany. Have my stuff already prepared, but didn´t start with the installation. Just want to get important informations in this forum. In the past I used Openmediavault, but now I´ll give unRAID a try. So in Openmediavault you can use Snapraid for parity and mergerfs for pooling, something similar or the same thing in unRAID. I followed the instruction of a member in the official forum of openmediavault to replace the parity drive really easy. I have an external USB-Chassis with 2 slots, capable to copy one disk to another completely without a PC running. The chassis will make a 1:1 copy. After this it is easy to boot up GParted in a live system to adapt the partition on the new disk, for example resize from 2 TB to 4 TB. The whole process (copy and resize) is really quick. 

 

Would this be an option on unRAID?

 

Have a nice weekend. 

 

I am not clear on the question.

 

Sounds like you are running another product and interested in moving to unRAID. And asking about migrating data??

 

unRAID is a particular about the partitioning and formatting of array drives. It is unlikely you would be able to move your disks over or clone your disks over. You'd probably have to repartition and reformat them.

 

Although you would not be able to add the disks as array disks, it is more likely you could mount them as "unassigned devcies" in unRAID. If so, and you set up some fresh disks in unRAID, you could copy the data across without going over the network.

 

unRAID support XFS, BTRFS, and RFS file systems only for array disks. I recommend XFS, but BTRFS is viable if you have a good UPS setup. RFS - do not go there.

 

Maybe if you clarify the question a little better we could be more helpful.

 

 

Link to comment

Hi guys,

 

thanks for your answers. I didn´t want to make a big confusion. And maybe my post was a little bit missunderstood. Right now I´m busy with my backup, checking if I really have everything secured. When this is done I will do a complete change to unRAID. Latest release is still downloaded and installed on a new USB stick (32 GB). HW is already installed in chassis.

 

I was not asking for data migration, just maybe another way to replace a smaller disk with a bigger one. In the past I was able to do this very easy using the described method.

Here is just a small description:

1) System is down, remove small disk

2) 1:1 copy with the 2-bay-chassis without any PC running (maybe over night)

3) Resize cloned bigger disk

4) Install cloned and prepared disk to the system and start up

5) No need for a parity scan or something like this, system is ready

 

If this procedure won´t work with unRAID, that´s okay. I was just interested if this would work. 

 

The biggest advantage of this method is avoiding to much stress on the disks. In the past I had to replace a disk in my Synology DS212+. I decided to replace the faulty one (2TB WD) with a bigger one (4TB Toshiba). And also replace the second small one (2 TB WD) with another 4 TB Toshiba. In the DS212+ I used the recommended method of SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid) for data protection.

 

1) Remove faulty 2 TB disk

2) Replace with new 4 TB disk

3) System will repair the volume (a few hours)

4) Replace 2 TB with 4 TB

5) System will repair the volume (a few hours)

6) System will ask you to expand the volume (another few hours)

 

This method is really stressful for the disks

 

On 28.7.2017 at 3:48 PM, jonathanm said:

Also, on unraid there is no file system on the parity drive, it doesn't contain any files. You may want to read the wiki to get familiar with how unraid uses parity before you jump in with incorrect assumptions and hurt yourself.

I think that´s not really correct. In which way the OS will be able to write data on a drive without any file system? There must be a file system.

 

So, anyway I´m looking forward in the use of unRAID. I was really impressed by the videos of "Spaceinvader One" on youtube. I think he is also in this forum with another nickname. It seems that the system is really stable and is also easy to maintain.

Link to comment

The process in unRAID for upgrading a disk to a larger one (assuming you have a parity drive) is:

  • stop the array
  • change the slot with the disk to be removed to Unassigned
  • start the array.   It will start with the missing disk being emulated by the combination of the other drives plus parity.   This step simulates a disk failing, but its main purpose in this case is to get unRAID to ‘forget’ the serial number of the old disk.
  • stop the array
  • assign the replacement disk to the slot where the old disk was
  • start the array

this will cause unRAID to automatically rebuild the disk contents to the new disk and on completion of the rebuild expand the file system to fill the new larger disk.   You will be able to use the system as normal while this is going on although any significant amount of I/O will slow down the rebuild process.   Although the rebuild normally works fine it is a sensible precaution to keep the disk being replaced unchanged until the rebuild completes just in case.

 

in fact I am not sure you even need the steps to ‘forget’ the old drive but the steps only take a minute or so.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, hitman2158 said:

I think that´s not really correct. In which way the OS will be able to write data on a drive without any file system? There must be a file system.

The parity drive DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSIBLE DATA on its own. The OS doesn't write files to parity, so no file system.

On 7/28/2017 at 9:48 AM, jonathanm said:

You may want to read the wiki to get familiar with how unraid uses parity before you jump in with incorrect assumptions and hurt yourself.

 

Link to comment
49 minutes ago, jonathanm said:
2 hours ago, hitman2158 said:

I think that´s not really correct. In which way the OS will be able to write data on a drive without any file system? There must be a file system.

The parity drive DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSIBLE DATA on its own. The OS doesn't write files to parity, so no file system.

On 7/28/2017 at 9:48 AM, jonathanm said:

You may want to read the wiki to get familiar with how unraid uses parity before you jump in with incorrect assumptions and hurt yourself.

 

 

For a better understanding of how unRAID parity works, You should read this:

 

     https://wiki.lime-technology.com/UnRAID_Manual_6#Parity-Protected_Array

Link to comment

Okay guys,

 

understood. I just had a look on a tutorial from Spaceinvader One and saw that the parity drive is not shown any type of file system in the GUI. And maybe there is a missunderstanding. I didn´t mean that there are any data files like movies or music stored on the parity disk. I´m sure to go in the right direction with unRAID. Yes, I have to spend money for a licence, but the system seems very good. And yes, maybe there are other systems free of charge like openmediavault, nas4free or freenas. But I had some strange errors in the past with openmediavault after upgrading the system. I think, I won´t have any of these problems with unRAID. But I learned a lot of Linux using openmediavault.

 

So have a nice week out there wherever you are. It´s a sunny day here with around 27°C, so around 81°F where you prefer Fahrenheit.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.