Correct way to increase disk space on ReadyNAS NV+

You have a v1 (sparc-based) NAS.  With the v1, all the disks need to be the same size in order to fully use the space.

The process is to replace one disk at a time - waiting for the resync to complete before moving to the next disk.  I recommend hot-insertion (removing the old disk and replacing it with the new one with the NAS running).  After the last disk syncs, you generally will need to reboot the NAS to trigger the "vertical expansion" that double your volume size.  The system should prompt you.

Note there are some situations where a factory reset (rebuilding the NAS from scratch, and restoring data from backup) is recommended.  You might want to review this information from mdgm: http://www.rnasguide.com/2011/06/22/why-you-might-want-to-factory-reset-a-sparc-readynas/

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wulp2 wrote:

What is the best way to this so I have double the space and my data is not lost.

 

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I always recommend a backup.  During the resync the data volume isn't redundant, so if you run into a disk problem you can lose all the data.  That can/does happen - the resync process on the v1 reads all sectors on the remaining drives, and that can turn up problems you didn't know you had.

FWIW, RAID isn't enough to keep your data safe even when the disks are healthy.

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wulp2 wrote:

 

See screenshot for current situation, note the 2TB being listed as (1862 GB).

 

1862 GB is normal.

There are two unit of measurement for disk sizes.  

Most operating systems use multiples of 1024 (1024*1024*1024 bytes = 1 GiB, 1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes = 1 TiB).  Technically they should be labeled as GiB, TiB, etc - but usually they are just GB and TB.

Drive manufacturers use multiples of 1000 (1000*1000*1000 bytes = 1 GB, 1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes = 1 TB).

Google will translate between these units for you.  If you enter "2 TB in GiB" in the search bar, it returns 1862.65 GiB.