ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus.... 18TB -> 24TB

Have you tested the bad disks using SeaTools? Run both short/quick and extended/long tests.

What RAID mode are you currently using?

If using X-RAID2 are you using single-redundancy or dual-redundancy?

What is the current volume capacity?

What disks were installed when you last did a factory reset.

I suggest you consider the ST4000NV000 instead of the DM. You'll get a drive intended for NAS, and a 3-year warranty instead of 1-year. I generally go with WDC, not seagate myself, so I don't have personal experience with the Seagate NAS drives.

There are expansion limits in x-raid2 - you'll need to answer mdgm's questions to find out when you will hit them. If you are running single-redundancy x-raid2, then the answer is "no". So start with there.

mdgm wrote:
Have you tested the bad disks using SeaTools? Run both short/quick and extended/long tests. What RAID mode are you currently using? If using X-RAID2 are you using single-redundancy or dual-redundancy? What is the current volume capacity? What disks were installed when you last did a factory reset.

Thanks for quick reply :)

Hi, yes, when disks went bad, one was replaced by Seagate, other out-of-warrant period :(
When I find time I will test that bad one with Seatools.

I'm currently using X-RAID2 with dual-redundancy. I cut&paste volume:
Volume C: Online, X-RAID2, 6 disks, 81% of 13 TB used

These 3TB disks were installed at the time of purchase so initially volume was configured as it is now. No expansion was ever done.

I'm running out of space and need extra space that's why I wish to use 4TB disks.
But the question is can I do this in this painless way of "pulling old 3TB/inserting new 4TB/wait-for-syncing" drives one-by-one"

Thanks!

StephenB wrote:

I suggest you consider the ST4000NV000 instead of the DM. You'll get a drive intended for NAS, and a 3-year warranty instead of 1-year. I generally go with WDC, not seagate myself, so I don't have personal experience with the Seagate NAS drives. There are expansion limits in x-raid2 - you'll need to answer mdgm's questions to find out when you will hit them. If you are running single-redundancy x-raid2, then the answer is "no". So start with there.

Thanks, I will look into that ST4000NV000 disks. I had horrible reliability problems with WD drives in the past so I only buy Seagates.
Oh my, I'm getting old..... been around since 8088 days, I had experience with all brands.
Based on my experience best drives I ever used were Quantum.... now long gone of course, then Seagate, why? in case of a problem with drive you have most chance to recover your data with these that's why basically. But of course, these are my experiences.

I'm running a dual-redundancy but I simply have no place to store/backup current NAS contents.
So really have to go with that swap in/out method only :(
Wonder if it will work?...

If you are running dual redundancy, then it might be possible. It depends on the answers to the other questions mdgm asked.

Of course if you are running with no backups, then your data is generally at risk.

BTW, I had horrible reliability with Seagate drives in the past, so I switched to WD!

StephenB wrote:
If you are running dual redundancy, then it might be possible. It depends on the answers to the other questions mdgm asked. Of course if you are running with no backups, then your data is generally at risk. BTW, I had horrible reliability with Seagate drives in the past, so I switched to WD!

For ST4000NV000 it specifically says:
Seagate NAS HDDs provide the best-performing, highest-capacity storage for 1- to 5-bay NAS systems.
Mine is 6 bay, wonder if that means anything.

What I do is I usually get 2 extra drives just in case.
Wonder if that would be a problem with ST4000NV000 which is a NAS-specific drive in the future.

On the other hand ST4000DM000 being a desktop drive can be found more easily.
For ex. Newegg doesn't currently have that NAS drive, nor Seagate (its page can be reached from Google but not from Seagate
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/

but it exists here:
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/nas-drives/

.....that's what I meant.
Wonder if that's an abandoned line?

It is not an abandoned line, I just mis-typed the model. It is ST4000VN000. Newegg and Amazon have it in stock.

I don't think the 6-slot bay is a problem. They are just trying to position it between enterprise drives and desktop.

Ah okies, price difference is not drastic like in between enterprise drives so I don't see why not.

Now the question remains:
Will I be able to make this transition simply by "pulling old 3TB/inserting new 4TB/wait-for-syncing" drives one-by-one?

Did your ST3000DM001 only have 1 year warranty? If your in Europe Seagate will extend it to 2 years from date of purchase if you email them.

I had 2 fail during rebuild, both outside of warranty and they swapped both.

frusnet wrote:
Now the question remains: Will I be able to make this transition simply by "pulling old 3TB/inserting new 4TB/wait-for-syncing" drives one-by-one?

As we've already said, it depends on the answers to other questions mdgm asked.

With the ultra-6 you can expand a volume by 8 TB over its lifetime. That is the volume size, not the raw disk capacity.

So your 6x3TB array is giving you 12 TB of capacity now (~11 TiB). You will be wanting to expand it to 16 TB (14.5 TB)

There are two expansion limits:

(a) you can't expand beyond 16 TiB. You are ok on that one, as you aren't trying to do that.
(b) you can't grow a volume more than 8 TB over its lifetime. That starts from the initial install or the most recent factory reset.

So we need to know the starting point in order to tell if the hot swap approach will work. If you started with 6x3TB it will. If you started with 4x2TB it wouldn't.

Also, you will need to install 4 of the larger drives in order to see any expansion.