4TB disks on ReadyNas Ultra 6?

fastfwd wrote:

marky wrote: if you are willing to factory reset, you can put 6 x 4tb hard drives in the Ultra 6 and have a usable volume thats > 16TB?? Yes, you can put all 6 drives in and then factory default. If you choose to format your RAID array as RAID-5 (single-disk redundancy), you will end up with an array of approximately 20TB. Doing that, though, is probably a bad idea. When a drive fails in a RAID5 array, your data will be unprotected from further failures until you replace the failed drive and rebuild... But with an array that large, it would not be unexpected for an error to appear on one of the other drives during the rebuild. A better plan would be to format the 6x4TB array as RAID6, which will provide two-disk redundancy. You'll "only" get 16TB, but your setup will be much more reliable.

Thanks for the reply. I plan to upgrade the ReadyNAS Pro Business Edition which currently has 6 x 1.5 TB to 6 x 4 TB. Due to budget constraint current thinking is to go with 6 x ST4000DM000, which would put me outside of the HCL (which only lists one 4 TB HDD, HUS724040ALE640). And will be setting up the volume as RAID6.

I guess question for the forum is, ST4000DM000 is 4 TB yes, but at 5900 RPM (not 7200 RPM). Use of the box is primarily for streaming HD videos and backup purpose. The box is not on 24x7 but only when its being used, eg. streaming movies and storing/retrieving backup.

Would 6 x 5900 RPM HDDs be practical for eg. HD video streaming? I would think, yes, given relying on 1 GbE networking.

Thanks much.

gixxer wrote:
Due to budget constraint current thinking is to go with 6 x ST4000DM000

Amazon is selling that desktop-rated drive for $159 and selling the NAS-rated ST4000VN000 for only $169. If I were you, I'd spend $60 more for six of the latter drives.

gixxer wrote:
Would 6 x 5900 RPM HDDs be practical for eg. HD video streaming? I would think, yes, given relying on 1 GbE networking.

Yes.

fastfwd wrote:
gixxer wrote: Due to budget constraint current thinking is to go with 6 x ST4000DM000 Amazon is selling that desktop-rated drive for $159 and selling the NAS-rated ST4000VN000 for only $169. If I were you, I'd spend $60 more for six of the latter drives.

Ok, sounds like a better idea. Will do that. Thanks!

Having just picked up a readynas ultra 6 (cheap) I looking at what disks to put in it.
I was thinking of putting in 6 X ST4000VN000 but Im not in the USA and they are not as cheap here as they are there (and If I was buying one I might ship it - but 6 - I ddint think so)....
Im curious about the statement above "with an array that large, it would not be unexpected for an error to appear on one of the other drives during the rebuild." These are NAS drives with better warranties here (and more costly). is this just talking about an rare or hypothetical risk - are we talking about a real risk (also I actually bought two of the ReadyNAS Ultra 6's because they were so cheap so my plan is eventually have the second one up and running as well so any really critical data I can synch across both. Still if Errors are common(ish) then I will definitely go raid 6. - Does anyone have an idea about how long the rebuild would take (hours ? days ? weeks ? - hopefully not months ?) has anyone found the NAS Drives noticeably more reliable than the Desktop drives.... (my choice would seem to the desk top drives which I can get quite cheaply at the moment, the NAS Drives which would cost me substantially more or the Hitachi 4 TB which is certified but cost over double the Seagate NAS drive ). So I just wondered what people's experiences and any additional thoughts were with 4TB drives in the Ultra 6 (good or bad) before I went out and bought 6 of them....

Put one disk in the NAS, update the firmware to the latest, verify the update is successful, then power down, put the reset of the disks in and do a factory default using the boot menu. I would strongly recommend using RAID-6 or X-RAID2 dual-redundancy.

I would go with NAS drives. I would definitely avoid Green drives, though if you must use WD Green disks make sure you run WDIDLE3 on them.

When doing a factory default the resync would take from several hours to maybe a day or two. With higher capacity disks it will take longer than lower capacity disks as the disks have to be synced sector by sector.

Hi - dont mean to Hijack this thread - but
mgdm seems to be very knowledgeable (already answered a question of mine)

and the recommendation seems to be RAID-6 or X-RAID2 dual-redundancy with NAS drives

Ive managed to pick up TWO ULTRA 6's cheaply. (and I should note I have a High availability back ground but in software - not at this level so im used to putting together systems that have to work no matter what -but when it comes to hardware / storage - I just leave that to others - my point being - I know that I over design things and its because of decades of doing it that way for work - i cant help it. I even have dual ethernet cables running through the house sigh - anyway)

So I have TWO ULTRA 6 NAS's - and I plan to put in 6 X 4 TB Seagate NAS drives (based on feed back Ive already got - thanks to all).
So my question is given I have two - do I
Run two separate NAS's - with RAID-6 or X-RAID-2 giving me a total of 32TB of storage. (My hesitation is what if the NAS itself dies)
OR should I run two Mirror'd NAS's - RAID-5 - giving me a total of 20 TB High redundancy ( that way if One NAS itself fails I cna get it fixed while the other one is running - even if i shut it down to reduce the chance of it failng)
OR should I run two Mirror's NAS's No RAID - giving me 24 TB of space redundant as of the last mirror (nightly)

What Im not sure about is WHAT DO you do if the NAS itself dies ? has anyone had that happen (never owned a NAS before - just used Mirrored Disc's at home)
What are people's thoughts and/or experiences on this issue ? should I post this elsewhere ?
Thanks

Well if you maintain an up to date backup you might feel happy with RAID 5 or X-RAID2 single-redundancy though personally I would stick with RAID-6 or X-RAID2 dual-redundancy.

If the NAS dies, there is a 3 year warranty from the date of purchase. If it fails after warranty you could migrate the array to your other Ultra 6 or connect the drives up to an ordinary PC running Linux and recover the data pretty easily.

Thanks for the reply
Just some clarification

IF one of the ULTRA dies (say in 5 years time but hey I have some servers running VMs at home over double that age) - can I take all the disks out of the other live one one - plug in the disks for the dead ultra 6 (presumably in exactly the same BAY) and it will read it (so I can copy to a new NAS ?)

I run linux Ubuntu but I assume to access them through a PC I would need to
a) plug ALL 6 HDD into the PC and
b) define the volume (?) to linux before if could access the data
I couldn't access them disk by disk I assume

Thanks and sorry to be slow....

aussieboxer wrote:
IF one of the ULTRA dies (say in 5 years time but hey I have some servers running VMs at home over double that age) - can I take all the disks out of the other live one one - plug in the disks for the dead ultra 6 (presumably in exactly the same BAY) and it will read it (so I can copy to a new NAS ?)

Assuming the problem is with the chassis not the disks, yes.

aussieboxer wrote:
I run linux Ubuntu but I assume to access them through a PC I would need to a) plug ALL 6 HDD into the PC and b) define the volume (?) to linux before if could access the data I couldn't access them disk by disk I assume Thanks and sorry to be slow....

You would have to enter some commands in the Terminal to assemble the RAID, scan for volumes, activate them, mount them etc. If your system doesn't have the required packages you could download them using apt-get.

StephenB wrote:
2. The main "traps" are the two expansion limits. (a) 8 TB volume growth over the lifetime of the volume and (b) can't cross the 16 TB volume size 3. You can create an XRAID2 volume which is >= 16 TB. But you need to do that with a factory default (wiping your data). You can't expand through the 16 TB limit.

Just need a clarification. With 4 x 4 TB installed there will be no reason to put in dIsks in slot 5 and 6 due to the 16 TB limit?

Dag