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Forum Discussion
data loss with resynchronization?
Dear experts,
I’m wondering if you could weigh in on the risks of losing data from hard drives during a resynchronization. Humbly, I explain my self-imposed predicament. I have a Pro Pioneer loaded with 3 x2Tb Hitachi 2K7000 drives in channels 1-3 and configured with X-RAID2. This system has worked flawlessly for over 2 years, but I recently have been reaching the storage capacity and just purchased an additional Hitachi 3K7000 2 Tb drive. When I went to install the drive, I noticed that the machine had accumulated a lot of dust over the years, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to clean the machine before adding the new disk. I shut down the NAS, pulled all of the drives, removed the dust and then reinserted the 4 drives, the older 3 drives in their respective channels and the new drive in the 4th channel. When I replaced the drives, I did not realize that I had fully inserted the new drive. I turned on the machine and went back to my computer (NO, I didn’t check to see which drives were detected on the NAS screen). As I was working at my computer, I opened raidar, and the setup wizard popped up, prompting me to choose a RAID configuration and proceed through the setup steps. Having never expanded the memory, I didn’t think much about this and chose X-RAID2 and completed the setup. It was only after the setup was completed that I realized that only the new drive was connected when I saw that there was only 1.8Tb available and found the NAS to have empty folders. At this point, I turned off the machine, connected the drives in channels 1-3 and rebooted the machine. When the machine started to resynchronize with the drive in channel 1, I became concerned about the effect that this resynchronization might have on the existing data on this drive and shut down the machine only minutes into the resynchronization. My concern was that the machine may have reset when it detected only an unformatted drive in channel 4, and data on any drives subsequently added would be deleted. I posed this question to tech support at Netgear and the response was that I would not lose any data because I didn’t do a factory reset from the boot menu. Given that I have some important files on drives 1-3 that I’ve yet to back up to a USB harddrive, I would like confirmation before proceeding with the resynchronization. If there are any concerns about data loss, then I’d also welcome any suggestions as to how to proceed to minimize this risk. Thanks in advance for the help.
I’m wondering if you could weigh in on the risks of losing data from hard drives during a resynchronization. Humbly, I explain my self-imposed predicament. I have a Pro Pioneer loaded with 3 x2Tb Hitachi 2K7000 drives in channels 1-3 and configured with X-RAID2. This system has worked flawlessly for over 2 years, but I recently have been reaching the storage capacity and just purchased an additional Hitachi 3K7000 2 Tb drive. When I went to install the drive, I noticed that the machine had accumulated a lot of dust over the years, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to clean the machine before adding the new disk. I shut down the NAS, pulled all of the drives, removed the dust and then reinserted the 4 drives, the older 3 drives in their respective channels and the new drive in the 4th channel. When I replaced the drives, I did not realize that I had fully inserted the new drive. I turned on the machine and went back to my computer (NO, I didn’t check to see which drives were detected on the NAS screen). As I was working at my computer, I opened raidar, and the setup wizard popped up, prompting me to choose a RAID configuration and proceed through the setup steps. Having never expanded the memory, I didn’t think much about this and chose X-RAID2 and completed the setup. It was only after the setup was completed that I realized that only the new drive was connected when I saw that there was only 1.8Tb available and found the NAS to have empty folders. At this point, I turned off the machine, connected the drives in channels 1-3 and rebooted the machine. When the machine started to resynchronize with the drive in channel 1, I became concerned about the effect that this resynchronization might have on the existing data on this drive and shut down the machine only minutes into the resynchronization. My concern was that the machine may have reset when it detected only an unformatted drive in channel 4, and data on any drives subsequently added would be deleted. I posed this question to tech support at Netgear and the response was that I would not lose any data because I didn’t do a factory reset from the boot menu. Given that I have some important files on drives 1-3 that I’ve yet to back up to a USB harddrive, I would like confirmation before proceeding with the resynchronization. If there are any concerns about data loss, then I’d also welcome any suggestions as to how to proceed to minimize this risk. Thanks in advance for the help.
1 Reply
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- The resync in this case is really better described as an expansion. All the sectors in your data volume (whether they are used or not) are reorganized into the large new volume. Your data is always vulnerable in a resync or expansion, so it is best to have an up to date backup.
When you only had the new drive fully inserted, the NAS did a new factory install on it. The three older drives were not inserted, and therefore were not affected. If you had inserted those drives with the NAS running, then they would have been treated as new disk installs. However, the unit was shut down. It should then have booted off of drive 1 (the old array), and synced the new drive to the old three. If for some reason it booted off disk 4 (the new drive), then it would have synced the old array to the newly created one - and in that scenario you would have lost data. However, I think Netgear is correct, and that your data is likely ok.
I suggest that you first boot up the NAS with only the 3 old drives installed. The volume might not be redundant. Once up, complete your backup. Then reinsert the new drive 4.
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