What is the best way to swap multiple drives for one larger drive?

[Guest dranani]

I bought an 8TB EasyShare when it when they were on sale and want to replace 3 drives with it.

 

I currently have 8 drives. 2x 2TB, 3x 3TB, 1x 8TB parity, and 2x 120GB cache in a pool.

 

I need to replace the 2x2TB and 1x3TB with the new 8TB.

 

I still need to do a preclear but I have no room in the server to do so.

 

What is the best way for me to swap the drives out and do a preclear?

[SSD]

Your request is similar to the post I made recently. Have a loo and if you have questions on how to adapt this to your requirement, let me know.

 

 

[Guest dranani]

2 minutes ago, SSD said:

Your request is similar to the post I made recently. Have a loo and if you have questions on how to adapt this to your requirement, let me know.

 

 

That seems fairly straighforward but will take a decent amount of time.

 

How do I copy from one drive to another? Is it via command line?

 

Any idea if I can preclear my new drive if it is plugged in via usb? I have an HDD dock that I could use but not sure if it is the right choice. I want to preclear but last time I precleared an 8TB drive it took days to complete.

 

 

My main goal is to get my server down to 6 drives total so that I can move it in to an r710. I don't think that would change what I should do now but I figured it could be relevant. I have an LSI card that I will use instead of the Perc6i

[SSD]

2 hours ago, dranani said:

That seems fairly straighforward but will take a decent amount of time.

These are optimized instructions. Nothing can be faster than copying data within the server without parity overhead. Copy would go fastest if you delay adding parity OR almost as fast if you use reconstruct write mode. Since you are taking far more drives out, you'll be able to mount and copy from all but one of the disks (one at a time) before having to shut down and add the final disk and copy it over.

 

Quote

 

How do I copy from one drive to another? Is it via command line?

There are multiple ways. Midnight Commander (command line but not sure if screen or console is required), cp (using command line) inside "screen" / console, or Crusader docker - there is a video on how to configure it. Personally I use cp with -rpv options inside a "screen" session. (Screen it's installable via the nerdpack plugin). You could also copy using Windows over the network. This would be decidedly slower. If you have a Windows VM on the server, you could copy using that nearly as fast as copying via Linux on the server.

 

Quote

Any idea if I can preclear my new drive if it is plugged in via usb? I have an HDD dock that I could use but not sure if it is the right choice. I want to preclear but last time I precleared an 8TB drive it took days to complete.

Not sure about preclearing inside USB. You might have issues getting smart data, so you'd be unaware if the drive had issues. You could also have issues with the geometry of the drive changing and the disk not recognizing the preclear signature. But since you are rebuilding parity, this won't matter.

 

Is there an another machine you could use for a day or 2 to do the preclear. It will not touch your other drives unless you try to add them to an array, preclear them, or write to them some other way. It's very easy to just preclear the disk you want and boot the machine back into Windows or whatever when you are done.

 

Quote

My main goal is to get my server down to 6 drives total so that I can move it in to an r710. I don't think that would change what I should do now but I figured it could be relevant. I have an LSI card that I will use instead of the Perc6i

Some controllers need to be flashed with IT mode firmware. I believe the perc would require this. Can't help as I have no experience with that card. I like the LSI SAS9201-8i as flashing is not needed.

 

Good luck!

[Guest dranani]

On 12/9/2017 at 9:04 PM, SSD said:

These are optimized instructions. Nothing can be faster than copying data within the server without parity overhead. Copy would go fastest if you delay adding parity OR almost as fast if you use reconstruct write mode. Since you are taking far more drives out, you'll be able to mount and copy from all but one of the disks (one at a time) before having to shut down and add the final disk and copy it over.

 

There are multiple ways. Midnight Commander (command line but not sure if screen or console is required), cp (using command line) inside "screen" / console, or Crusader docker - there is a video on how to configure it. Personally I use cp with -rpv options inside a "screen" session. (Screen it's installable via the nerdpack plugin). You could also copy using Windows over the network. This would be decidedly slower. If you have a Windows VM on the server, you could copy using that nearly as fast as copying via Linux on the server.

 

Not sure about preclearing inside USB. You might have issues getting smart data, so you'd be unaware if the drive had issues. You could also have issues with the geometry of the drive changing and the disk not recognizing the preclear signature. But since you are rebuilding parity, this won't matter.

 

Is there an another machine you could use for a day or 2 to do the preclear. It will not touch your other drives unless you try to add them to an array, preclear them, or write to them some other way. It's very easy to just preclear the disk you want and boot the machine back into Windows or whatever when you are done.

 

Some controllers need to be flashed with IT mode firmware. I believe the perc would require this. Can't help as I have no experience with that card. I like the LSI SAS9201-8i as flashing is not needed.

 

Good luck!

It is not letting me start my array because it is saying there is a drive missing.

 

I removed one of the three drives and replaced it with the new 8tb.

 

I started my server and now i am at where I choose what disk corresponds to what harddrive.

 

Disk 1 shows as missing (it is out of the server). and my new disk is set as disk 6.

 

what am I messing up?

Edited December 12, 2017 by dranani

[SSD]

Looks like you did not do a new config and keep your drive assignments.

[Guest dranani]

5 hours ago, SSD said:

Looks like you did not do a new config and keep your drive assignments.

Yeah, I meant to edit that comment. I found out what I missed and I actually just finished copying files from the three drives to the new drive using rsync.

When I out my parity back in will I want to format it and then run parity again or will unRAID be able to figure out what needs to be done if I just put my parity back in and start the array?

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

EDIT: Disregard this, parity will rebuild
 

Edited December 12, 2017 by dranani

[SSD]

Good deal! Enjoy your array.