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Raid 1 on ReadyNAS 204 with 4 discs
I just got a ReadyNAS 204 with 4 8TB hard drives yesterday. It has 6.10.2 firmware. It came preconfigured with Raid 5, but I want Raid 1 with a 2-disc volume, mirrored to the other 2 discs. I h...
Maeve1956 wrote:
Can anyone advise on how to set up RAID 1 with 4 discs so that I have one data volume on 2 discs which is being mirrored to the other 2 discs?
The mode you are describing isn't called RAID-1. It's called RAID-10.
So try destroying the RAID-1 volume you created, and then create a RAID-10 volume after selecting all 4 disks.
Thank you. I was just reading about RAID 10 last night, and I suspected that was the method I needed to use. I had not even heard of RAID 10 before - been using RAID 5 at work for years and that was the only one I was really familiar with. Learn something new every day, that's my motto. Thanks again!
P.S. It's going to take 49 hours to sync! Patience is a virtue.
RAID 10 is a RAID1 (mirror) of two RAID0 (concatenated) drives. That does sound like what you want, though you've not quite described it that way. I'm not quite sure why you'd want that over RAID5 or RAID6, though. The speed gain is not going to be realized in an RN204, and you still can lose the volume with a second drive failure.
Yes, on review RAID 10 is exactly what I want. I had not heard of RAID 10 before. Everywhere I worked we always used RAID 5, and I have configured RAID 5 many times, but never any other level.
I wanted RAID 1 because it is easier to recover from a single disc failure with RAID 1. Secondly, this NAS has 32TB, and with RAID 5 it gives me 21TB, which is a LOT more than I need or will ever need. I only need about 10TB max, so I'm willing to sacrifice space for ease of data recovery. Thirdly, by having a mirrored backup volume I can eliminate the external USB drive I have been using to mirror my older, 8TB NAS, with which I am not happy.
All I will be using the NAS for is to store mirrors of important data folders, such as My Documents, to store copies of full weekly and incremental daily backup files for 2 computers, and to store media files for Plex. I don't have thousands of DVDs and hundreds of CDs or buckets of downloaded media as so many people have, so I don't need the 21 TB of space. So why did I buy such a large NAS? Because it was being sold second-hand on eBay at a very good price.
Maeve1956 wrote:
Thirdly, by having a mirrored backup volume I can eliminate the external USB drive I have been using to mirror my older, 8TB NAS, with which I am not happy.
I'd be careful here.
The mirror does protect from routine disk failures, but it is not a backup. There are many situations where the mirror won't protect your data.
Many of the files on your ReadyNAS are already backups of other devices, so losing the data volume wouldn't be catastrophic for those. But you should back up your media library on another device.
That's good advice about my media library, thanks, but I intend to back it up to the USB external drive. It isn't huge, and it will rarely change, other than the occasional new season of Doctor Who or Sherlock. :-)
Maeve1956 wrote:I wanted RAID 1 because it is easier to recover from a single disc failure with RAID 1.
OK, but RAID10 will not give you the same thing as RAID1. Since it''s a RAID1 of two RAID0 sets, you'll need one complete RAID0 set (two drives) for a recovery.
Assuming 1&2 are one RAID0 and 3 & 4 the other, you can recover from 1&2, 3&4, 1&4, or 2 & 3. Having access to a third drive does nothing to help. If you lose a drive and have to re-sync, losing drive 3 while 1 is re-syncing or 4 when 2 is re-syncing is fatal.
With RAID6 you also need a minimum of two drives, but it can be any two of the three (so add 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 to the above list), and having access to at least three improves the process. If you lose a drive, you can lose any single remaining one while re-syncing and still recover. Your volume size will be the same as with RAID10.
You can find articles saying RAID6 is dead and RAID10 and 50 are better. These are based on speed improvements and a belief that a second failure during re-sync is rare. I doubt you'll see much speed difference on your 204, and with home use (where drives aren't typically swapped out just because of age), I think the assumption of failure possibility is falacy.
Also consider that you may be underestimating your eventual space use. RAID5 with a spare may also be something to look into. You can later add the spare to the RAID if needed, where converting from RAID10 or RAID6 to RAID5 is not as simple.
That's very useful information, thanks. There is a lot to consider. I worked in I.T. for 25 years, and the only RAID we ever used on our network servers was RAID 5, so that is the only level I was familiar with.
The one thing I'm not worried about is running out of space. I'm retired, I haven't bought any new music for 30 years, and I am not one of those people who is obsessed about owning every movie they like. I haven't set foot inside a movie theatre since 1995. Right now I own only 200 movies and quite a few TV series, such as Vera, Inspector Morse, and a lot of Masterpiece Theatre costume dramas. I have used up 5TB of my old 8TB NAS with media and data and backups, and I don't expect that to grow much.
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