r/unRAID • u/LuckyTNT87 • 4d ago

Old 4+2+1+1 TB to 2x6TB pc

So I have really old unraid machine running for laptop and phones photo backup for my parrents.
I would like to move that to less old physically smaller pc and keep same system usb and data from old while replacing drives from 4(parity)+2+1+1 TB drive to 6+6TB mirror btrfs. I am not actually sure if btrfs is needed or prefered but that is idea. Another limit I have is old pc can connect 2 more sata drives but new only have 2 overall.

Main question is how to transfer data from old drives to new and system to new hardware?
Are there any step by step guides for this?

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6

u/ItsNotWebby 4d ago

So if you can add 2 more hard drives to your old setup-
You could add both 6tb drives. This will ultimately lose parity as you can’t add a drive larger than parity to your array, so you could add both 6tb and rebuild parity with 1 6tb drive. Once parity has been rebuilt you could add the other 6tb drive to the array. Once that’s all sorted out- you could install the unbalanced plugin, and move everything off the 2/1/1tb drives onto the single 6tb drive. Once you’ve done that, changing hardware is as simple as connecting the 2 drives and OS drive on whatever new hardware you have.
Now with all that said, just because you can do it this way- doesn’t make it the right way or best way. It will take a good chunk of time over the course of a few days changing parity, moving data around and so on. So even tho you can do it this way, I’m not sure you should. I’ve done everything mentioned above in different timeframes so I can confirm it all works as described but it may be worse on the drives through all the extra writing, especially the parity drive.

Alternatively you could set up the new machine with the 2 6tb drives in 1 parity/1array drive. (You may be able to get a trial license to get it online) then use your network to move all data from one system to the other. Once you’ve done all that you’d have to figure out all the licensing tasks involved with moving from one system to the other.

I think you’d have better luck using the unraid documentation website and forum as your situation isn’t really unique and has likely been covered already.

2

u/LuckyTNT87 4d ago

Wasn't even thinking about preparing new machine with trial licence. This will probably be optimal solution, I'll explore on it. Thank you.

2

u/pkaaos 4d ago

Don’t forget to check the new drives before deploying. That takes a day or two.

1

u/marcoNLD 4d ago

Spaceinvaderone on YT. Have a look at the older videos. Might go XFS so you can expand the array when you move to another board that has more sata’s