RN424 swap out all 4 disks together - factory reset procedure
Per earlier posts, RN424 has 4x4TB Barracuda SMR disks, about 80% full.. Contents are fully backed up via two other NAS units (RN528X and RN212).
Plan is to remove all 4 disks for archiving, replace with (up to) 4 new 18TB disks. Am aware I could start with 2 or 3 disks and add the other(s) later as needed.
Questions about factory reset procedure:
- Assume: Gracefully power down RN424, remove 4x4TB SMR disks
- Assume: Install (up to) 4x18TB CMR disks, power ON
- What happens? Does system boot same as a brand new unit? Or does it retain prior system info (via EEPROM or other NV)? - If system boots as new, is a factory reset (FR) needed anyway? Why?
- How is factory reset performed in this scenario? Through the web GUI (system/settings), or is the rear panel reset button needed?
- In this scenario, on first power-up do I initially login with admin/password and then immediately perform a FR?
Please walk me through the procedure step by step, with new disks inserted.
- Assume: Gracefully power down RN424, remove 4x4TB SMR disks
- Assume: Install (up to) 4x18TB CMR disks, power ON
If the 18 TB drives are unformatted, then the system will automatically do a fresh factory install when you power it on, after doing a self test on the drives (which takes about 2 minutes or so).
If the disks are formatted, then you will need to use the boot menu to force the factory default. OS-6 NAS won't automatically re-format drives that are already formatted. There is a 10 minute delay that starts after the disk self-test - you can shorten that by pressing ok on the front panel when the delay period begins. See page 97 here:
The final result is the same either way. Disks are formatted, software is installed in the OS partition, and the system begins syncing the XRAID data volume. All the settings are on the disks, so nothing is preserved from the previous configuration.
Re: RN424 swap out all 4 disks together - factory reset procedure
You can save the configuration file from the old volume and then restore it to the new after it's created, assuming you use the same volume name. If you have any apps installed, you should re-install them before restoring the configuration. Of course, especially if you were using ReadyCloud, then you may want to take this opportunity to start from scratch.
There's no data copied onto these drives yet, so what is the NAS "resyncing"? Nomenclature is confusing.
The RAID array is a virtual disk that is protected by RAID parirty blocks. Those parity blocks are being created during the resync. This is "below" the file system, so the amount of data in the volume doesn't matter. RAID parity protects both the used and unused space on the volume. Syncing the volume is the same process (and takes the same amount of time) whether the volume is empty or full.
As far as time goes, the process requires every sector on every disk to be either read or written. So it will take a while (and could easily take longer than the 24 hour estimate).
Re: RN424 swap out all 4 disks together - factory reset procedure
I tried placing the removed RN424 disks (4x4TB Barracuda's) back into my RN314, thinking they should just work. After all, these are the same 4 disks I swapped from the RN314 to the RN424, and that worked fine.
But this time, it didn't work. Getting the dreaded "Remove inactive volumes to use the Disk #1,2,3,4." Did some digging, found others who had this issue, none who reported ability to fix it without losing the data.
The data on these drives is fully backed up, so I'm not overly concerned. Plus, these drives are SMR and one disk showed 8 errors during the Disk Test, so I'll be ditching these drives eventually anyway. Still, would like to understand how this happened. One thing I did observe was that when I powered up the unit, the LCD reported the ReadyNAS OS is being upgraded. The OS on the RN314 was very close to the latest (in fact I thought it was on the latest, guess not). Maybe that created the issue, dunno. Weird thing is, I can access the RN314 just fine, including SSH'ing into it. It's just the volume on the drives - seems inaccessible.
But this time, it didn't work. Getting the dreaded "Remove inactive volumes to use the Disk #1,2,3,4." Did some digging, found others who had this issue, none who reported ability to fix it without losing the data.
It depends on what happened - I have been able to help several folks remount the volume.
If you can get me the full log zip file, I can take a look. Send me a link via PM.
