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Multiple NAS drives in a non-RAID (JBOD) configuration?
I have a Netgear ReadyNAS214 (latest OS) which had a single drive as it was/is intended as a backup to machines on the network – "JBOD", no RAID required or wanted. When I introduced a second dri...
Did you try to do a factory default? That would be needed if you were still using XRAID. I thought based on your earlier post that you have already gone back to JBOD. FWIW, it wasn't needed to simply add a JBOD volume.
In an event, if that is what you are doing, then the NAS admin password has been reset to password. The NAS will by default use XRAID. So when you get past the wizard, you should
- switch to flexraid
- destroy the data volume
- create two jbod volumes, one for each disk
There is no need to wait for the XRAID volume to build/resync.
If your old password still worked, it didn't do a factory reset, at least not with the main drive installed. But what you did need to do, unless you are confortable "under the hood" with SSH, is destroy the RAID volume and re-create the JBOD. Seems you eventually got there, though after some frustration.
BTW, how your simple 1-drive NAS got so complicated is that it's not quite so simple as you seem to have thought. You thought it was simple enough you didn't need to read the manual, which would have told you that XRAID is the default. The NAS is a dedicated Linux computer with lots of drive bays, not something simple like a USB drive chassis. Reading the instructions is highly recommended.
The former pswd didn't work (had to go and find the default one ...), and the IP had reverted to DHCP rather than the static I had assigned. It certainly did the factory reset/default.
I had read the manual, more than once, but it really didn't seem like it wanted to deal with JBOD x2. I certainly didn't see anywhere that said "for more than one JBOD you'll need to flip X-RAID and select flexRAID".
Also the flexRAID warning "only recommended for experienced users)" or similar - which I am certainly not (*) - is a bit intimidating to newbies. So the way forward was far from evident in the manual.
(*) This single-drive JBOD config was set up for me by someone else.
Is the NAS set up the way you want it?
Pedro45 wrote:I had read the manual, more than once, but it really didn't seem like it wanted to deal with JBOD x2. I certainly didn't see anywhere that said "for more than one JBOD you'll need to flip X-RAID and select flexRAID".
I agree it does require some knowledge of RAID in order to fully understand the FlexRAID features described in the manual. Note I don't work for Netgear, and I have no influence over what is in the manuals. While there is always room for improvement, I do find them to be helpful myself - and many posters here don't know they exist or how to find them. So I often do link them into my replies.
I will say that if the RAID modes are simplified too much, then users who want advanced RAID features are frustrated. But if everything is exposed, the folks who don't understand RAID get confused.
So XRAID is the simple version, but it only does the RAID redundancy mode that you don't want. IMO, RAID redundancy is the right approach for most home users, so I think they've made the correct call there. But since you don't want the RAID redundancy (for whatever reason), you are forced to use the advanced FlexRAID mode.
There is a catch-22 here for Netgear. A few years back, FlexRAID was simpler - but too restrictive for many people. So they added more knobs, and of course that made it more complicated. I guess they could add a third JBOD mode. But I don't know if there are enough folks out there who would find that useful - and IMO adding too many modes makes things more complicated, not less.
Pedro45 wrote:
The former pswd didn't work (had to go and find the default one ...), and the IP had reverted to DHCP rather than the static I had assigned. It certainly did the factory reset/default.
You must have told it to do the reset (either from the web UI or the boot menu). The reset/default does a full factory install (reformatting the disks and starting from scratch). So it will apply all factory settings.
BTW, there is also an OS reinstall option, which also will reset the password and the network settings to their default values. But it doesn't rebuild volumes, change the share configuration, etc. That is described in the hardware manual (since it is built into the boot loader).
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