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Suggestion for x-raid3
This is a suggestion for a hopefully smarter utilization of disks-arrays of disks of different sizes. Say that I have 3 disks of 1 TB each. I buy a 3 TB disk and put it into the empty slot, after s...
Valpskott - I for one can absolutely, positively certify that the second condition you posted will work exactly as mdgm and sphardy have posted. I have two NVX (32 bit x-86 based) units running X-Raid2. When initially set up, they were running 4x1TB drive sets. One was acting as the rsync backup target of the other. Then I started running out of room.
Then, being acquainted by the fact that X-Raid2 will utilize the available space once it has space for the redundancy, purchased 5 3TB drives, 2 for each NVX and 1 for a spare. I replaced the first 1TB drive in my backup unit and let it resync knowing it would not gain any volume. I then replaced the second 1TB drive and allowed it to complete the resync. At this point I had 2x1TB and 2x3TB and was still at 2.7GB of space (3TB less the overhead). Fully expecting this, I then performed the required reboot to trigger the vertical expansion. It took a while (slower than a resync, because the system is making sure data is preserved), but when it finished I was rewarded with a volume of 4.5TB (the 5TB gross that is indicated in the above quote less the overhead). Several days later, I repeated the process with my primary NVX.
If you are currently at 3x1TB and needing more than the 1.8TB (net) volume you have, moving to a 3TB drive in the fourth position will at least expand you to 2.7TB (net). Then when you need further expansion, adding a second 3TB to replace one of the 1TB will gain you the extra 1.8TB (net) of space.
mdgm wrote:
There is a RAID-5 layer of 4x1TB giving 3TB of space, and a RAID-1 layer of 2x2TB giving 2TB of space. This gives 5TB of space in total. Of course disk manufacturers consider 1TB = 1000^4 bytes whereas the NAS like most computers considers 1TB = 1024^4 bytes. So 5000*1000^3/1024^3 = 4657GB (roughly). There are of course overheads as well.
If you have not got the expansion you expected (still have less than 3TB of space) please take a look at What To Do When Expansion Doesn’t Start
X-RAID(1) found on Sparc ReadyNAS only uses the capacity of the smallest disk. X-RAID2 (found on x86 and ARM ReadyNAS) is how I described above.
Then, being acquainted by the fact that X-Raid2 will utilize the available space once it has space for the redundancy, purchased 5 3TB drives, 2 for each NVX and 1 for a spare. I replaced the first 1TB drive in my backup unit and let it resync knowing it would not gain any volume. I then replaced the second 1TB drive and allowed it to complete the resync. At this point I had 2x1TB and 2x3TB and was still at 2.7GB of space (3TB less the overhead). Fully expecting this, I then performed the required reboot to trigger the vertical expansion. It took a while (slower than a resync, because the system is making sure data is preserved), but when it finished I was rewarded with a volume of 4.5TB (the 5TB gross that is indicated in the above quote less the overhead). Several days later, I repeated the process with my primary NVX.
If you are currently at 3x1TB and needing more than the 1.8TB (net) volume you have, moving to a 3TB drive in the fourth position will at least expand you to 2.7TB (net). Then when you need further expansion, adding a second 3TB to replace one of the 1TB will gain you the extra 1.8TB (net) of space.
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