Migrating Parity

I can't find the topic in the FAQ nor can I find it in a forum search...

 

Is it possible to migrate the parity disk from one drive to another to increase the maximum drive size in an unRaid array?

 

I am curious about this as you can build a decent sized array with smaller drives and upgrade to TB spindles as they come down in price.

 

Best,

 

 

 

I can't find the topic in the FAQ nor can I find it in a forum search...

 

Is it possible to migrate the parity disk from one drive to another to increase the maximum drive size in an unRaid array?

 

I am curious about this as you can build a decent sized array with smaller drives and upgrade to TB spindles as they come down in price.

 

Best,

unRaid is designed with this in mind...  To replace a parity drive is very easy.  Simply stop the array, replace the parity drive with a bigger drive and then restart the array.  Parity will be re-calculated on the new drive.  To replace a data drive with one bigger than the existing parity drive, do a "swap-disable" procedure as described below...

 

The http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=16  page has the following instructions:

You must replace a failed disk with a disk which is as big or bigger than the original and not bigger than the parity disk. If the replacement disk is larger than your parity disk, then the system permits a special configuration change called swap-disable.

 

For swap-disable, you use your existing parity disk to replace the failed disk, and you install your new big disk as the parity disk:

 

  1. Stop the array.

  2. Power down the unit.

  3. Replace the parity hard disk with a new bigger one.

  4. Replace the failed hard disk with you old parity disk.

  5. Power up the unit.

  6. Start the array.

 

When you start the array, the system will first copy the parity information to the new parity disk, and then reconstruct the contents of the failed disk.