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Forum Discussion
Changing Drives in RN214
Hello,
I currently have an RN214 fully populated with 4 4TB Western Digital drives. I'm running out of space, and am planning to upgrade all 4 drive to Seagate Ironwolf 12TB drives. I see the ST12000NV0008 on the compatibility list, but not the ST12000NVZ008 - does anyone know if these won't work? I suspect the Z is just the packaging - but I'm not sure. Also, I'm not looking to reset the unit and am planning to insert the new drives one at a time, as follows (if I am wrong with how this will work, let me know!):
- Insert the first 12TB, let the unit resync and it won't make the additional 8TB available.
- Insert the 2nd 12TB, let the unit resync twice - the first time for the 4TB as part of the existing RAID5 array, and the second for the additional 8TB -- it makes it available as a RAID1 array with the 8TB from Drive 1
- Insert the 3rd 12TB, let the unit resync twice - the first time for the 4TB as part of the existing RAID5 array, and the second for the additional 8TB -- it takes the RAID1 array, destroys it, then makes a RAID5 array of the three 8TB portions
- Insert the 4th 12TB, let the unit resync twice - the first time for the 4TB as part of the existing RAID5 array, and the second to add the new 8TB portion to the new RAID5 array
My question for all this - when I replace each drive, do I need to power off the unit? And does it do the rebuilding itself, or do I need to initiate something - and if so, what?
Thanks,
Brian
4 Replies
bwgreen wrote:
I currently have an RN214 fully populated with 4 4TB Western Digital drives. I'm running out of space, and am planning to upgrade all 4 drive to Seagate Ironwolf 12TB drives. I see the ST12000NV0008 on the compatibility list, but not the ST12000NVZ008 - does anyone know if these won't work?
The HCL is not kept up to date. Generally Seagate Ironwolf, WD Red Plus, and enterprise class drives are all good choices. WD Red drives are not (they are SMR).
bwgreen wrote:
Also, I'm not looking to reset the unit and am planning to insert the new drives one at a time, as follows (if I am wrong with how this will work, let me know!):
The process will work, but it would be significantly faster to back up the data and build the volume only once. A variation is to back up the 12 TB of data you have now to one of the Ironwolf drives temporarily. and then build a 3x12 TB volume. Restore the data, and then add the fouth drive to the array. Not only are these approaches faster, they also are safer. If a drive fails during expansion, you can lose the full volume. Both of these approaches preserve the original array.
As far as capacity goes,
- First drive replacement - no expansion, so a 12 TB volume
- Second drive replacement. - expansion to 20 TB
- Third drive replacment - expansion to 28 TB
- Fourth drive replacement - Expansion to 36 TB.
There would be two RAID groups (4x4 TB RAID-5, and when finished a 4x8TB RAID-5 group filling the rest of the capacity). The options above (3x12 TB->4x12 TB, etc) would have a single RAID group.
bwgreen wrote:
My question for all this - when I replace each drive, do I need to power off the unit? And does it do the rebuilding itself, or do I need to initiate something - and if so, what?
I always recommend hot-swapping (NAS running). The NAS will do a short drive self test, and if the drive is unformatted, it will add it automatically.
Although I've found Seagate Ironwolf drives to be reliable, I do suggest fully testing the drives in a PC with Seatools before adding them to the NAS. I run the full read test, followed by the full erase test. Some of my purchases have passed one of these checks, but failed the other.
Unless you believe the drives are just getting up in age and should be replaced due to that, I suggest you not replace them all now. Replacing two will give you a lot of extra space, and you can add the others later. That will space the ages out more, making it less likely that you could have two drives fail at the same time, rendering your volume dead. It'll also be fewer syncs at this time, reducing the stress on the older drives and any access slow-down the syncs create.
Of course, if you decide to go with StephenB's recommendation of doing a full factory default with all new drives, that doesn't retain the old volume, so that could also be a reason for replacing all four.
The drives are getting old (I think they are almost 6.5 years!), plus I want more space. I'm not too concerned with speed of access while I do the re-syncs, and while I don't WANT to lose the existing information I wouldn't be too upset about it!
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