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Forum Discussion
rmurgz
Sep 01, 2021Tutor
RN314 disk upgrade
I have a RN31400 currently running 6.10.5 OS with 4 x WD Red Pro 6TB drives configured as X-RAID. I'm running desperately low on space and would like to upgrade two of these drives to WD Red Pro 14TB (with a view the other 2 can be updated at a later date as need be).
Will the RN314 support such high capacity drives? I can't find anything anywhere? Also is it fine to have two 14tb and two 6TB drives or can this present issues with this Raid set-up? And is there a series of steps I should take (e.g. replace the drives of certain bays first)
Many thanks in advance
rmurgz wrote:
Will the RN314 support such high capacity drives?
Yes. FWIW, I have a 14 TB Exos in an RN202.
rmurgz wrote:
I can't find anything anywhere?
The hardware compatibility list shows drives up to 16 TB, and includes the Red Pro 14 TB. https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-List
rmurgz wrote:
Also is it fine to have two 14tb and two 6TB drives
Yes. Volume size can be computed by "sum the drives and subtract the largest). So your volume today is 18 TB (~16.3 TiB), and will grow to 26 TB (~23.6 TiB).
You hot-swap the first disk, and wait for the resync to complete. No expansion will occur at this step. Then hot-swap the second disk. It will first resync the existing volume (which will take a while), and then expand (doing a second resync).
rmurgz wrote:
And is there a series of steps I should take (e.g. replace the drives of certain bays first)
Use any bays you like. Netgear recommends making sure you have an up to date backup first (FWIW, i recommend that you always have an up to date backup of your NAS). There is no RAID redundancy during expansion, so if one of the existing disks fails during the process, you will lose your data. The resyncs do stress the disks (reading or writing every sector), and there can be bad sectors detected during the process that weren't found before.
You might want to schedule a disk test using the volume settings wheel, and let that complete before you begin the upgrade.
FWIW, I always test my disks in a PC before using them in the NAS. I first run the long generic (non-destructive) test, followed by the full erase (write zeros) test. I have had some disks pass one of those tests, but fail the other. Personally I like the old WD lifeguard software better than their newer Digital Dashboard - it gives a bit more info on what's going on. Although this will take a couple of days with 14 TB drives, I think it is worth the time.
3 Replies
rmurgz wrote:
Will the RN314 support such high capacity drives?
Yes. FWIW, I have a 14 TB Exos in an RN202.
rmurgz wrote:
I can't find anything anywhere?
The hardware compatibility list shows drives up to 16 TB, and includes the Red Pro 14 TB. https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-List
rmurgz wrote:
Also is it fine to have two 14tb and two 6TB drives
Yes. Volume size can be computed by "sum the drives and subtract the largest). So your volume today is 18 TB (~16.3 TiB), and will grow to 26 TB (~23.6 TiB).
You hot-swap the first disk, and wait for the resync to complete. No expansion will occur at this step. Then hot-swap the second disk. It will first resync the existing volume (which will take a while), and then expand (doing a second resync).
rmurgz wrote:
And is there a series of steps I should take (e.g. replace the drives of certain bays first)
Use any bays you like. Netgear recommends making sure you have an up to date backup first (FWIW, i recommend that you always have an up to date backup of your NAS). There is no RAID redundancy during expansion, so if one of the existing disks fails during the process, you will lose your data. The resyncs do stress the disks (reading or writing every sector), and there can be bad sectors detected during the process that weren't found before.
You might want to schedule a disk test using the volume settings wheel, and let that complete before you begin the upgrade.
FWIW, I always test my disks in a PC before using them in the NAS. I first run the long generic (non-destructive) test, followed by the full erase (write zeros) test. I have had some disks pass one of those tests, but fail the other. Personally I like the old WD lifeguard software better than their newer Digital Dashboard - it gives a bit more info on what's going on. Although this will take a couple of days with 14 TB drives, I think it is worth the time.
- rmurgzTutor
thank you so much! I have a mac so will need to investigate how I can do a similar test from there.
rmurgz wrote:
thank you so much! I have a mac so will need to investigate how I can do a similar test from there.
WD's tools are only for Windows, but I think there are some third-party tools that will run on a Mac. Hopefully someone else here will chime in with a recommendation.
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