Expanding Storage on RN3138 Question

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NARKOSIS wrote:

Does that mean we can just remove (say) the fourth drive, install a 6TB drive and its good to go?  

 

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Basically yes. 

You should make sure your backup is up to date before manipulating disks, as the array isn't redundant during the RAID resync, and the process will fail if there are latent disk issues.

Then hot-swap the first disk and wait for the resync to complete.

When it does, hot-swap the second, and wait for it.  There will be two resyncs needed (the second one will likely be called "reshaping".  So be sure it is complete before moving on to the third.

Also, the volume won't expand until the second disk is replaced and fully resynced.  The third and fourth disk upgrades will also expand.  

The capacity rule is "sum the disks and subtract the largest".  That will give you the size in TB (1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes).  However, the NAS actually reports TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024).  Google can convert this for you btw - for example, try entering 12 TB in TiB into the Google search bar.

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NARKOSIS wrote:

Do all of the drives need to be the same size?

 

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As is hopefully clear from the first response, no.

Personally I'd upgrade only two of the drives, and upgrade them with larger models.  That allows upgrades to be done more cheaply later (and often more cheaply now).

For instance, upgrading four disks to 6 TB Ironwolf Pros would cost about $720 USD and gain you 9 TB of capacity.  Upgrading two disks to 12 TB Ironwolf Pros would actually cost you a bit less at the moment (about $650 USD) - and you'd end up with the same volume size.  Plus when you need to upgrade again, you can replace one of the 3 TB drives with another 12 TB one, and gain another 9 TB.  A lot cheaper than upgrading all four every time.

That's just an example, obviously if you prefer different disks the pricing will be different.  But I do recommend using either NAS purposed (WDC Red or Seagate Ironwolf) or enterprise-class drives.