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Forum Discussion
a few items from my wish list....
1) Better support and documentation on volume encryption - how to create an encrypted volume (this is nowhere accurately and completely documented), info on what the expected performance degradation is, being sure encryption doesn't cause system hangs (if the key is in place, of course); you market whole volume encryption, now support it!
2) Official support for offline expansion on x86 systems, especially 6 bay systems like the Ultra 6. Netgear documentation doesn't mention the 8 TB expansion limit, and even suggests installing drives one at a time is a fine thing to do, which of course it isn't Netgear should rectify this by supporting offline expansion, which apparently circumvents the 8 TB limit. Presently the only supported workaround is a factory default, which of course wipes all data
3)Support in OS 6 for recursively changing unix permissions on a share and all folders and files; Linux permission issues are a real bugaboo with readynas, particularly for backups from an OS 4 system to an OS 6 system, since the nobody and nogroup UID's and GID's, respectively, used under OS 4 (65534) cause errors when the files are backed up to OS 6. Also, a tool in front view to display permissions would be nice.
4) This is wishful thinking, but the old "share level" security previously (but no longer) available on sparc systems was sure convenient for home use. Doubt this is possible any more, as I said "wishful thinking"
2) Official support for offline expansion on x86 systems, especially 6 bay systems like the Ultra 6. Netgear documentation doesn't mention the 8 TB expansion limit, and even suggests installing drives one at a time is a fine thing to do, which of course it isn't Netgear should rectify this by supporting offline expansion, which apparently circumvents the 8 TB limit. Presently the only supported workaround is a factory default, which of course wipes all data
3)Support in OS 6 for recursively changing unix permissions on a share and all folders and files; Linux permission issues are a real bugaboo with readynas, particularly for backups from an OS 4 system to an OS 6 system, since the nobody and nogroup UID's and GID's, respectively, used under OS 4 (65534) cause errors when the files are backed up to OS 6. Also, a tool in front view to display permissions would be nice.
4) This is wishful thinking, but the old "share level" security previously (but no longer) available on sparc systems was sure convenient for home use. Doubt this is possible any more, as I said "wishful thinking"
10 Replies
- 1- There is a huge performance hit on lower end models. I just didn't look into it so I can't help you to set it up right now. If I find some time and motivation to look at it I'll come back at you with a step by step guide.
see last message : viewtopic.php?f=21&t=75345&
2- There is indeed an 8Tb expansion limit for old models. I believe this is an addressing problem and I am not sure this could be addressed by doing an offline expansion. I am not specialist of the question though.
3- There is a way to change linux permissions with OS6, the file access tab on the settings for a share gives you some possibilities. You could reset the rights, you can set permissions and you can block rights inheritance. Maybe there is an option while backing up to "forget" original permissions on the old NAS. Once Again, I only have an OS6 device, so not expert here.
4- If you mean the possibility to set rights once for all protocols, I totally agree.
The 16 TB volume size limitation is an addressing problem (32 bit vs 64 bit inodes). OS4 will automatically format using 64 bit inodes in some cases, but not all. One consequence is that some disk configurations cannot be used even with a factory reset. 1x3TB+5x4TB is one of several examples that fails. The simplest solution would be to always use 64 bit inodes, but that would increase filesystem overhead.xeltros wrote: 2- There is indeed an 8Tb expansion limit for old models. I believe this is an addressing problem and I am not sure this could be addressed by doing an offline expansion. I am not specialist of the question though.
The 8 TB growth limit is not addressing, and off-line expansion can be used to overcome it. https://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopi ... 6&p=356612 Netgear does not recommend this method, and I believe there are at least some users who found it failed in their case.
I don't expect to see either of these expansion issues addressed in OS4, though Netgear has surprised me before :)
I agree with alexofindy that the OS6 GUI is inadequate here. OS4 lets you change all file permissions and owners within a share to values you can set. OS6 "reset" is closest to that feature, but the owner/group and permissions are not settable. At present the only way to overcome this is to use ssh.xeltros wrote: 3- There is a way to change linux permissions with OS6, the file access tab on the settings for a share gives you some possibilities. - I thought the 8Tb expansion limit was a hard limit but it seems like Netgear made it to avoid data corruption from an unfinished program. So now it should be quite safe to try I think as Linux programs usually are corrected very quickly. Still you ought to have a backup for that (you already do have one or several of them, don't you ?).
So what you want would be a "reset permissions to" button. Could be good indeed, not of any use for me though, I would rather be able to set sharing rights to folders instead. xeltros wrote: I thought the 8Tb expansion limit was a hard limit but it seems like Netgear made it to avoid data corruption from an unfinished program. So now it should be quite safe to try I think as Linux programs usually are corrected very quickly. Still you ought to have a backup for that (you already do have one or several of them, don't you ?).
No! You need a newer kernel and the filesystem to be created on a newer kernel than what we use on our legacy devices and using new utilities to remove the 16TB limit. Please do not encourage attempting something that will lead to data corruption. You cannot expand online by more than 8TB over the life of the volume.
There is no workaround and data corruption is something to avoid wherever possible.
If you hit one of the expansion limits backup your data; and then do a factory reset (wipes all data, settings, everything) with the high capacity disks in place and then restore your data from backup.
You should backup your important data regularly regardless. No important data should be trusted to just on device.- The post quoted above just said things wouldn't work with 64bit yet, this was two years ago and concerned an utility (resize2fs) that is not, AFAIK, linked in any way to the kernel but linked only to EXT4 that is built in the kernel. So unless EXT4 doesn't support it at all (which is not the case since factory reset is solving the problem) I don't see why there should be a need for a new kernel. So given what I know, I don't think there is a problem as long as you get the updated version of the utility, but you seem to know more than I do, so I'll trust you on this.
For the backup, a minimum of 3 backups is recommended and should allow you to do the factory reset safely. xeltros wrote: The post quoted above just said things wouldn't work with 64bit yet, this was two years ago and concerned an utility (resize2fs) that is not, AFAIK, linked in any way to the kernel but linked only to EXT4 that is built in the kernel. So unless EXT4 doesn't support it at all (which is not the case since factory reset is solving the problem) I don't see why there should be a need for a new kernel. So given what I know, I don't think there is a problem as long as you get the updated version of the utility, but you seem to know more than I do, so I'll trust you on this.
I have talked about this with devs who know. If there was a safe way to e.g. expand existing volumes from less than 16TB to over it we would have QA tested it and made it available.- I safely (apparently) expanded past the 8tb limit on my pro6, however did not try to exceed or expand the 16tb limit.
I upgraded from 6x 2tb (dual redundancy) to 6x 4tb (dual redundancy), using the offline expansion once the 8tb limit was encountered.
While I did not do a checksum based comparison, I never encountered any apparent corrupted files, though I can not speak to what corruption may have happened in the future.
I have since converted all my os4 devices to os6 and hope that I never have to worry about factory defaulting to overcome some other arbitrary limitation that was not properly foreseen and accounted for before it became real a real issue. - On OS4 offline expansion by more than 8TB I think should be O.K. But expansion past 16TB is definitely not.
- Oh, I forgot to state it in my post above, but I only attempted the 'offline expansion' after having a complete backup of the data on one of my other nas's.
I would not recommend any unsupported operation without having a complete and verifiable backup of any essential data.
To repeat the oft repeated advice, never trust your data to a single device or array. Backup = physically different copy(copies!) of data, preferably multiple copies on multiple devices in multiple locations (think fire/flood/theft/etc).
Yes - especially when you are tinkering with the RAID array.TeknoJnky wrote: I would not recommend any unsupported operation without having a complete and verifiable backup of any essential data.
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