Used drives.

[TheEditor]

I'm in process of building a new FreeNAS server. 10 drives, RaidZ2 etc. I'm currently running a freenas server BUT it's hardware raid. So basically it's just one big UFS partition.

My question is this. I'll be purchasing 4 new drives to go with the 6 that I'm currently using. What if anything should I do to prepare those 6 drives to be used? Obviously i'll break the raid but should they be zeroed out, formatted, or just put in the new array and let FN deal with them the way they are.

As a side question to this, what's the best way to label the drives. I'd like to label them say Drive1-10 so if one goes I'll know which one needs replacing.

I looked around for "drive preparation" but didn't come across anything specific.

Thanks
Bruce

 

[warri]

Sometimes it is necessary to wipe the disks before using them with the GUI, you can do that with tools like DBAN (wipe takes long!). I'm sure there are faster tools available as well. If the drives don't contain a partition table, you should be good to go without wiping.

You can't really label them manually, they'll be labelled automatically with their GPTID. You can resolve this id quite easily to the actual drive (serial number), so best to put a sticker on the drives with the serial number clearly visible.

 

[TheEditor]

Thanks Warri.

So just go ahead with the install and if it complains then wipe the drives? I figured I'd kill all the partition information with Gpartd or something.

Bruce

 

[warri]

Exactly, that's what I would do.

 

[TheEditor]

Thanks again warri.