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Forum Discussion
Considering buying Ultra 4
Hi, I have unused 1TB plus 2x1.5TB disks at home I'd like to make use of for storage, backup and streaming. A four disk NAS feels like the best way and I am considering a good deal on Ultra 4 + 1x2...
IF you start with the 500GB as the first drive, and then add the two 1.5GB drives (or initially start with all three) you would have 2TB of volume. (One of the 1.5TB drives would be used for redundancy) and you would have a 500GB layer across the 500GB and 1.5TB drives and a second layer of the remaining 1TB of the 1.5TB drives. (X-Raid2 uses two layers with dissimilar sizes). Then when you add the 2TB, since there is not a second 2TB to provide redundancy, it will be treated as a third 1.5TB. This will give you a volume of 3.5TB. Again, the one 500GB layer across three drives (1.5TB) and a 2TB volume across 2 drives (2TB). But replacing the 500GB drive with the 2TB drive only gives you 3TB gross. A single layer across the two 1.5TB drives with the 2TB drive providing redundancy.
When you take the opportunity to replace the 500GB drive with another 2TB, then the volume will be 5TB (gross) consisting of 1 layer of 1.5TB across 3 drives (4.5TB) and a 500GB layer across the remaining 500 GB volume of one 2TB drive (remember the one 2TB provides all the redundancy) and this gives you the 5TB (gross) volume. (Since overhead takes approximately 10 percent of the volume for the 1000/1024 conversion and the OS) and the front panel would display 4.5TB net.
This is the volume I have with 2x3TB and 2x1TB drives. My volume started with 1TB drives and I skipped the 2TB drives and went straight to 3TB.
While you can actually put four different sizes of drives in a ReadyNAS, X-Raid (found on the old sparc platform) can only use the size of the smallest drive across all 4 and X-Raid2 can use the size of the two smallest drives.
To avoid the 8TB expansion limit (for a long while), I would add the drives one at a time starting with the 500GB. I would even include the 2TB for the full 4 disk array. Once the volume has been established, I would then do a factory default before you do any configuration changes or add any data. This would establish the initial volume at 4.5TB net. Then with the 8TB expansion added to that would mean that your net would have to exceed 12.5TB net and even with 4x4TB drives you would only have a net volume of 10.8TB which would not hit the expansion limit. (I will not say never hit it, for as soon as the 4TB drives become common they will start working on the 5s.)
When you take the opportunity to replace the 500GB drive with another 2TB, then the volume will be 5TB (gross) consisting of 1 layer of 1.5TB across 3 drives (4.5TB) and a 500GB layer across the remaining 500 GB volume of one 2TB drive (remember the one 2TB provides all the redundancy) and this gives you the 5TB (gross) volume. (Since overhead takes approximately 10 percent of the volume for the 1000/1024 conversion and the OS) and the front panel would display 4.5TB net.
This is the volume I have with 2x3TB and 2x1TB drives. My volume started with 1TB drives and I skipped the 2TB drives and went straight to 3TB.
While you can actually put four different sizes of drives in a ReadyNAS, X-Raid (found on the old sparc platform) can only use the size of the smallest drive across all 4 and X-Raid2 can use the size of the two smallest drives.
To avoid the 8TB expansion limit (for a long while), I would add the drives one at a time starting with the 500GB. I would even include the 2TB for the full 4 disk array. Once the volume has been established, I would then do a factory default before you do any configuration changes or add any data. This would establish the initial volume at 4.5TB net. Then with the 8TB expansion added to that would mean that your net would have to exceed 12.5TB net and even with 4x4TB drives you would only have a net volume of 10.8TB which would not hit the expansion limit. (I will not say never hit it, for as soon as the 4TB drives become common they will start working on the 5s.)
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