NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Can I Backup a Degraded Volume?
This is probably a really bad idea, but I am just exploring ideas. Let's start with info on my current environment: RN214: X-RAID with 2x8 TB + 2x3 TB I have copied ~ 6 TB of DVDs to this X-...
Mauser69 wrote:
so I am considering reconfiguring the NAS to Flex-RAID with a single 8 TB drive as RAID 1 (for the DVD copies),
This would be jbod, not RAID-1. RAID-1 is two mirrored disks.
Mauser69 wrote:
Since none of the DVD copies are at real risk of loss, they seem to be wasting a lot of protected RAID storage,
6 TB would be a lot of DVDs, so I am thinking that re-ripping them would be a very big job. Something to consider in your overall strategy of not backing them up.
Mauser69 wrote:
Here is my idea:
- If I remove one of the existing 8 TB drives from the current X-RAID volume, that volume will continue to operate in a degraded status. So I would re-format that now external 8 TB drive to connect as a normal Windows USB share, then back up the degraded share to this USB drive. In fact, there would be enough space on this single 8 TB USB drive to do new full backups of ALL the existing X-RAID shares (but the whole X-RAID volume would remain degraded during this time).
-
After I have the new backups on the USB drive, I would do a factory reset on the RN214 and configure it as Flex-RAID with the 1x8 TB drive RAID 1, and 3x3 TB drives RAID 5.
- Finally, I would restore the backups from the 8 TB USB drive, sending the DVD copies to the new RAID 1 volume, and all the other shares to the new RAID 5 volume.
Question:
Are there any problems with this plan (other than the increased risk of data loss during the time that the existing X-RAID volume is in degraded mode)?
This will work, but I suggest starting with just the 3x3TB disks installed. Then after the sync, you'd switch to flexraid and add the 8 TB drive as a jbod volume.
The reasoning here is that the apps and home folders are both placed on the initial volume. It's a bit better to make that redundant.
StephenB wrote:Jbod volumes don't need to be synced, so there is something else going on.
What disk model is the 8 TB drive?
The 8 TB drive is a WD white label WD80EMAZ shucked from a WD Elements case. This is the exact same model as the other 8 TB that I just pulled from the NAS to use as a USB backup drive (and that drive did not experience the same huge slowdown during the full-vlume backup that I ran to it).
WD does not provide any specs on these white-label drives; many people have speculated that they are simply re-labeled Reds, others have found some evidence that they may be Ultrastar drives. While it is possible that the drive is SMR garbage, that seems quite unlikely since WD was only sneaking the secret SMR drives into the Red line for 6 TB and smaller models. And besides, even if the first 12 hours of very slow data transfer was somehow related specifically to the drive model, that would not leave room to explain why the next 15 hours of the same job (all moving identical vidio files) would have run so much faster.
I am wondering if somehow this mysterious slowdown was related to the fact that I did not format or initialize that 8 TB JBOD volume - I just deleted the previous volume segments on the drive by using the Admin Page DESTROY frunction. Since I do not have a clue what might be going on under the covers in the NAS OS, it could be anything.
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
