Adding more disks to a 3drive stripe

[rdyott]

im not sure if it's been answered here before.

But:

I have a:

2tb
2tb
4tb

3drive stripe config.

Gives me little over 7tb of data. I've used up around 4.5tb.
On bluray rips, TV show recordings, and my music collect.

My question: I have 2x extra 4tb drives. I want to add them to the mix. Or remove the 2x 2tb drives.

Is this possible without losing all my data I have now?

 

[dlavigne]

Yup, as you have zero redundancy. I assume you realize that this means that the day any one of those drives dies that you've lost all your data?

 

[SweetAndLow]

You can't remove the drives but you can add the new drivers as a new vdev I think.

I find it ironic that you ask if there is a way to do this without losing data but you are running a stripe and could lose your data at any moment. Good luck to you and make sure your backup is updated.

 

[rdyott]

I understand I have no redundancy. When I set up the NAS. I thought to myself. Oh it's just movie backups. But more and more I wish I had redundancy.

So what options do I have?

Back up what I have? And then just start a new fresh raid?

So to refresh:

3x4tb
2x2tb

Are the drives I have.
I assume I should get another 2tb?

Also what would be the best way to back up the 4.5tb I have already?

I've been playin with nuclear fire lately it seems.

Thanks for the replies and help!!

 

[Neil Whitworth]

im not sure if it's been answered here before.

But:

I have a:

2tb
2tb
4tb

3drive stripe config.

Gives me little over 7tb of data. I've used up around 4.5tb.
On bluray rips, TV show recordings, and my music collect.

My question: I have 2x extra 4tb drives. I want to add them to the mix. Or remove the 2x 2tb drives.

Is this possible without losing all my data I have now?

You could add you 2x 4Tb drives to the pool as MIRRORS giving you:-

2tb + 4tb
2tb + 4tb
4tb

This would give you redundancy on the first 2 vdevs, but no extra space.

Once the resilver is compleate you could then break the mirror and remove the 2tb drives giving you

4tb
4tb
4tb

This would REMOVE the redundancy just added, but allow the pool to expand to 12 tb.


If you had 5x 4tb drives, you could add 3 as MIRRORS, giving you:-

2tb + 4tb
2tb + 4tb
4tb + 4tb

and redundancy for all vdevs.

You could then remove the 2x 2tb and replace with the last 2x 4tb to give a final config of:-

4tb + 4tb
4tb + 4tb
4tb + 4tb

This would give you redundancy and expand the pool to 12 tb

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

3x4tb
2x2tb

Are the drives I have.
I assume I should get another 2tb?

Also what would be the best way to back up the 4.5tb I have already?

I suggest buying three more 4TB drives, then:

1. Copy 4TB of data to one of the new 4TB drives, and put the extra 0.5TB somewhere else.
2. Destroy your pool.
3. Create a 6-drive RAIDZ2 pool of 5x4TB plus 1x2TB. The usable capacity will be very roughly 8TB.
4. Then copy your data to this new pool.
5. Follow the documentation for replacing a drive in order to expand a pool, replacing the 2TB drive with the 4TB drive.