Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Apr 25, 2019

RND4000 v3 (ReadyNAS NV+) RAID 1

Hello. Newly purchased ReadyNAS NV+ v3, to be used as media server mostly. Flex-RAID, two volumes RAID 1, currently 4 x 1TB discs. I had backed everything up onto a 2TB disk, and bought a second 2...

mfb9

Aspirant

Apr 26, 2019

Yes of course - thanks. I was just hoping that there would be a more "elegant" way of doing it! Do you know whether either of my ways would work? It would be useful in all sorts of ways to know whether I can take out both disks of a RAID 1 mirror and put them back later without the system trying to re-format them...

Thanks very much.

Mark

StephenB

Guru - Experienced User

Apr 26, 2019

mfb9 wrote:

Yes of course - thanks. I was just hoping that there would be a more "elegant" way of doing it!

XRAID on your v1 (sparc-based) NAS will vertically expand if all the disks are upgraded. I don't believe that FlexRaid (which you are using) supports that. The manual only discusses vertical expansion in the XRAID section: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RND2110/RAIDiator4-1_SW_en_06Dec11.pdf?_ga=2.256926923.1967187447.1556282816-1440440257.1554661675

However, you can try it and see.

As a general rule, your NAS will reformat a disk whenever it is hot-inserted, or whenever the NAS thinks it isn't correctly formated. You can power down NAS, manipulate disks (including replacing one with a cloned one), and then power up again, and the NAS won't reformat. Though it might still resync.

Also, the operating system (and the configuration) is mirrored across all the disks in it's own OS partition. One challenge with your other idea is that the configuration is changing during the process, and that will create problems when you try to reinsert the original volume. Also, I think it would actually be faster to destroy/recreate the volume, and restore the files from your backup.

mfb9
Aspirant
Apr 26, 2019
Thanks. That's very helpful (your information, not the behaviour of the system!). It is old technology - I shouldn't expect too much. It's SO much quieter than my other NASes.

Mark
- mfb9
  Aspirant
  Apr 26, 2019
  Actually, on second thoughts, look what I've found! The clear implication is that it will do as I was hoping for. I'll try it (after making a second back-up of course: I've become paranoid after a data loss in RAID 5) and let the community know, FWIW, what happens.
  - StephenB
    Guru - Experienced User
    Apr 28, 2019
    mfb9 wrote:
    
    Actually, on second thoughts, look what I've found! The clear implication is that it will do as I was hoping for.
    
    No, that's not the clear implication. The section you are quoting is for XRAID, not FlexRAID.