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ReadyNAS 312 swapping HDD for SSD, filesystems, data transfer
Hi, i am looking for the easiest solution.. ReadyNAS 312, only 2 bay NAS device
having only primary HDD for ages in slot 1 so it contains ReadyNAS OS install + data
recently i have connected SSD as secondary into slot 2 and realized i could use it for OS (only for OS) to make it faster and remaining HDD for data......
Question 1: if i swap drives, or remove HDD completely and connect SSD only, install ReadyNAS OS to SSD, right after i connect HDD, will be old data in HDD (that contains OS + data, probably or maybe two partitions, EXT3/4??? if im right?) normally accesible via ReadyNAS? There will be 2 disks with ReadyNAS OS installed at same time. Will device take primary slot as primary drive to boot from? And will be able to road from drive 2 cause the above described filesystem?
now lets get things more complicated, got another HDD, lets call it HDD2, brand new one
1) need to transfer data from HDD1 to HDD2, how to do this using easiest and most simpliest way?
i would like to leave HDD2 only for data, no OS
final positioning would be > primary : SSD with ReadyNAS OS only > secondary : HDD2 with data only
Question 2 is how to solve this above? Looking for smart easy simple solution. Thank you.
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ddewrbbdg wrote:
recently i have connected SSD as secondary into slot 2 and realized i could use it for OS (only for OS) to make it faster and remaining HDD for data......
No, you cannot make it only for the OS. The OS is mirrored on every drive (in your case two). The system normally boots from the first drive, but any writes are made in parallel to both the drives.
Also, the OS partition is only 4 GB, so you would definitely be wasting space if you do this.
You can instead switch to FlexRAID, and set up two jbod volumes (one for each disk). Then set up some shares on the SSD. The performance gain is highest with folders that have a lot of small files, so keep that in mind when you plan out what shares should be on SSD. If you put the SSD in slot one, you might get some performance gain from the OS, but only for reads.
ddewrbbdg wrote:Question 1: if i swap drives, or remove HDD completely and connect SSD only, install ReadyNAS OS to SSD, right after i connect HDD, will be old data in HDD (that contains OS + data, probably or maybe two partitions, EXT3/4??? if im right?) normally accesible via ReadyNAS?
No, that is not the right process to add a second jbod volume. It won't do what you want, and you could end up destroying the data on the existing HDD if you aren't careful. What you normally would do is switch FlexRAID, select the SSD, and create a jbod volume on it.
The question suggests you have no backup plan for the NAS. That is quite risky. and something you should take care of.
BTW, your NAS uses the BTRFS file system for both the OS and the data volume
ddewrbbdg wrote:
now lets get things more complicated, got another HDD, lets call it HDD2, brand new one
1) need to transfer data from HDD1 to HDD2, how to do this using easiest and most simpliest way?
i would like to leave HDD2 only for data, no OS
final positioning would be > primary : SSD with ReadyNAS OS only > secondary : HDD2 with data only
There is no good way to put the OS on only one drive.
The ways to transfer data to a new volume are
- install both volumes (requiring FlexRAID) and set up NAS backup jobs to copy shares from one volume to the other.
- or back up the data to another disk (USB or storage in a PC), and then restore the data from the backup.
Ok, i understand. There is no problem for me with having OS at every disk drive, altought its unusual. But 4GB so who cares.
So basically.. yes i use FLEX RAID and JBOD for all drives.. the easiest and recommended is...........
Leaving current (data) HDD1 in slot 1, removing (currenty empty) SSD from slot 2, and connecting new HDD2 to slot 2?
Then transfering data.. from old HDD1 to HDD2 i would probably use ssh and linux commands or samba and total commander .. but it would be probably transfer speed of half of network speed, doing this from PC with windows via network?
Then removing old HDD1 from slot 1 and inserting SSD to slot 1. Then should OS to SSD install.
I have no usage for SSD except system and maybe some marginal data, but i could make shares.
I presume, NAS boots from slot 1 as preferred, when two drives are connected, right?
Another option would be connecting old data drive to Windows PC, but im not sure what pick or howto read BTFRS in windows easily and transfer files simultaneously via network to NAS. Or first to PC NFTS filesystem and to NAS via network as second step.
Regarding parallel writing from OS to both drives, system partitions.. it probably does when installing programs, apps, right? But does this happen, include, even when doing changes via SSH, like apt-get install packages, update, etc? Editing selected files and so?
If you mix an SSD with a spinning drive, you will gain no significant speed in OS operations. You would gain speed only for files stored on the SSD JBOD volume. That's because RAID doesn't work the way you seem to think it does -- it doesn't use one drive alone with the other as a backup. Besides, the most important OS processes are running continuously in RAM, not executed on demand from the OS partition.
Unless I'm missing something as to your final goal, IMHO, you're better off just adding HDD2 as a second JBOD volume and leave the SSD out of the NAS. Of course, you still should insure you have a backup, and backup on a separate JBOD volume on the same NAS is a very risky way to do that, as both volumes could be destroyed by a hardware failure.
What exactly is it that's running too slowly on your NAS? There may be a way to speed it up, just not what you think it is.
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