Temporarily Removing Drives From Pool & Adding Back Later?

[GiantCow]

I had to stop using an external enclosure containing 5 drives and now the pool is read-only with those 5 drives listed as missing. Have a few questions about how to proceed from here:

1. Can I remove the missing drives for now and keep using the smaller pool temporarily, then add the drives back later?

2. When I do add back the drives later, will there be any issues with folder directories? Or will everything be able to merge?

Thanks in advance.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Yes, you can.  However, if you just remove the missing disks... the next time you reconnect the external drives, they will automatically be re-added to the pool. 

And this may cause issues, as the data may be out of sync, and will prompt you to resolve conflicts. 

The best option is to reconnect them and then remove them.  

[GiantCow]

If I reconnect them and then remove them, DrivePool will move the data off the drive and onto the remaining pool right? The rest of the pool doesn't have enough free space to absorb the data on the 5 drives from the external enclosure...

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Correct. 

Though, you can use the "dpcmd ignore-poolpart" command to drop them from the pool, without moving data.  You can use the "dpcmd unignore-poolpart" to re-add them. 

That may get you the behavior that you want.