Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Nov 30, 2018

RN31400 increase space needed with EDA500

I would like some advice on the proper way to increase my space on an RN31400 with a EDA500. Both are fully populated with the following: RN314 4 x 5 TB drives (13.63 TB) EDA500 2 x 5 TB; 3 x 2T...

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Installation & Upgrade

StephenB

Guru - Experienced User

Dec 01, 2018

jonl0711 wrote:

Also, I may want to look for an upgrade tot he RN314 and EDA500, what would be the best upgrade?

I'd look at both the 6-bay and 8-bay desktop models. You're using 8 disks now (oops - 9 disks, so migration to an 8 bay chassis won't work), so you should be able to migrate to a single 8 bay chassis. Though if you do move to a new NAS it is often more economical in the long run to use fewer and larger disks (keeping some slots empty).

You have 24 TB of storage now across the 3 volumes. if you went with 4x8TB you'd be able to get the same amount in a 4-bay NAS (and would have some empty slots in a 6 bay or 8 bay). 3x12TB would also give you the same amount of storage with RAID-5. Though many folks are more comfortable with RAID-6 when using large drives.

jonl0711 wrote:

what would be the best/proper way to increase the disk with a newer disk, I'm just in the planning stage as I have enough space to carry me for a while. The drives are approaching 5 yrs and I would to prepare the system for the future.

Well, if the main concern is to replace the aging disks before they fail, then you could just replace the oldest disks first. But you should monitor the SMART stats, and take them into account also.

The other approach is to upgrade the disk sizes in the main chassis, and to discontinue the use of the EDA over time. For instance, upgrading two of the 5TB disks in the RN314 to 8 TB would allow you to drop the 2 TB EDA volume.

Keep in mind that the disks in the main chassis are used for booting and apps, so losing that volume has a bigger impact than losing one of the EDA volumes.

Sandshark
Sensei
Dec 01, 2018
It is unfortunate you decided to make the EDA500 two volumes. Otherwise, you could just replace one of the 2TB's with a 5TB and gain 3TB.

I recommend you first make a backup, but the following should work:

With power off, remove one 2TB drive from the EDA, then boot. It will come up with that volume "degraded", but still accessible (assuming it's RAID5, based on our reported volume size). Now, hot-insert the new 5TB and use it to expand the current 2x5TB volume.

Then use a backup job to copy everything off the 3x2TB volume (which really only has 2 drives at this point) to the others, then destroy the smaller volume and remove the drives. Adding yet another 5TB would be the best solution for more space, but you could use the 2x2TB's for a separate volume again.

One thing to keep in mind when looking at new NASes is that they don't support the EDA500.
- StephenB
  Guru - Experienced User
  Dec 02, 2018
  Sandshark wrote:
  
  With power off, remove one 2TB drive from the EDA, then boot. It will come up with that volume "degraded", but still accessible (assuming it's RAID5, based on our reported volume size). Now, hot-insert the new 5TB and use it to expand the current 2x5TB volume.
  
  Note you can alternatively expand any of the volumes if you get a pair of larger size disks - though the process with FlexRaid can be a bit confusing. Performance is faster in the RN314 chassis, so I'd recommend expanding that first, and retiring the 3x2TB volume on the EDA.
  
  But this should work, and of course it is less expensive because you are only buying one disk.
  
  Sandshark wrote:
  
  One thing to keep in mind when looking at new NASes is that they don't support the EDA500.
  
  So you would need to get the number of disks to 8 or less before you upgrade the NAS - then you can directly migrate all the disks to one of the desktop NAS models.