HiI have a Pro Pioneer stacked with five WD RE4 drives (WD2003FYYS-01T8B0 and WD2003FYYS-02W0B0) and would like to start incrementing to 3TB WDC drives or greater starting from the sixth drive.http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=580The HCL is silent on RE drives of this capacity, however. Does anyone have any experience with the 3TB WD3000FYYZ or 4TB WD4000FYYZ drives in their Pro Pioneer and who may have followed a similar upgrade path?What are any caveats I should know as I start this upgrade cycle?Thanks in advance for any help or guidance you could offer.

What disks did you have installed when you last did a factory default.Be aware of two expansion limitations:1. Cannot expand by more than 8TB, so if your volume capacity was 3.5 TB when you last did a factory default you cannot expand past 11.5 TB.2. Cannot expand past 16TB. If you want a volume with greater capacity you have to do a factory default with the disks in place.

Thanks, mdgm. The drives in place since I got the NAS are 2TB each.

So you had all five in place? You didn't add them one by one with a resync in-between. What RAID mode are you using?

From memory, I had four 2TB HDDs in place from the start and added a fifth identical 2TB HDD at a later date to expand capacity. I'm using RAID Level X-RAID2 over five 2TB disks.

Ok. As mdgm says, there are two expansion limits - you can't go expand past 16 TiB, and you can't expand more than 8 TiB from your starting point.In your case, you remember starting with a ~6 TB volume size (4x2TB xraid2) - which is about 5.4 TiB. So you can expand up to 13.4 TiB (14.7 TB). This limit looks like it will kick in when you add the last 3 TB drive (volume space for 6x3TB single redundancy is ~15 TB, a few hundred GB too high).Options include(a) stop at 5x3TB+2TB(b) switch to dual redundancy - giving you greater protection. The main issue there is that it requires 4 3TB drives up front to expand.(c) Install the first 3 TB drive in slot 6, and then do a factory reset. You'll need to reinstall any add-ons, reconfigure the NAS,and restore data from backup - definitely a pain. But your new expansion ceiling would be 16 TiB. If your memory is incorrect on the drives at initial install, you will likely need the factory reset anyway (as the expansion will fail before you expect).What firmware are you running?

WD 3TB recommendations for Pro Pioneer?

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 29, 2013
What disks did you have installed when you last did a factory default.

Be aware of two expansion limitations:

1. Cannot expand by more than 8TB, so if your volume capacity was 3.5 TB when you last did a factory default you cannot expand past 11.5 TB.
2. Cannot expand past 16TB. If you want a volume with greater capacity you have to do a factory default with the disks in place.
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Dec 29, 2013
Thanks, mdgm. The drives in place since I got the NAS are 2TB each.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 29, 2013
So you had all five in place? You didn't add them one by one with a resync in-between. What RAID mode are you using?
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Dec 29, 2013
From memory, I had four 2TB HDDs in place from the start and added a fifth identical 2TB HDD at a later date to expand capacity. I'm using RAID Level X-RAID2 over five 2TB disks.
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 30, 2013
Ok. As mdgm says, there are two expansion limits - you can't go expand past 16 TiB, and you can't expand more than 8 TiB from your starting point.

In your case, you remember starting with a ~6 TB volume size (4x2TB xraid2) - which is about 5.4 TiB. So you can expand up to 13.4 TiB (14.7 TB). This limit looks like it will kick in when you add the last 3 TB drive (volume space for 6x3TB single redundancy is ~15 TB, a few hundred GB too high).

Options include
(a) stop at 5x3TB+2TB
(b) switch to dual redundancy - giving you greater protection. The main issue there is that it requires 4 3TB drives up front to expand.
(c) Install the first 3 TB drive in slot 6, and then do a factory reset. You'll need to reinstall any add-ons, reconfigure the NAS,and restore data from backup - definitely a pain. But your new expansion ceiling would be 16 TiB. If your memory is incorrect on the drives at initial install, you will likely need the factory reset anyway (as the expansion will fail before you expect).

What firmware are you running?
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Dec 30, 2013
Thanks, StephenB, that's great advice. I'm running RAIDiator 4.2.20.
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Dec 30, 2013
Correction: RAIDiator 4.2.25.
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 31, 2013
Ok. Just wanted to check that your firmware supported 3 TB drives (which of course it does).
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Dec 31, 2013
Many thanks, StephenB. And a happy new year to you!
Nate_Cochrane
Aspirant
Jan 02, 2014
Just thought I'd give this a nudge - does anyone have any recommendations for WD 3TB drives?