Installing two hard drives as seperate volumes

Gouge wrote:
If I do this (ie. individual Raid 0) and one drive fails will the NAS operate still with the remaining drive ie. is the OS installed on each drive or is it held on the Readynas itself?

The OS is installed on the disks. A single disk failure of volume C would result in a non-bootable system.

Gouge wrote:
Also as the format is EXT3 is it possible to connect a raid 0 drive as discussed, up to a Linux system and transfer data between it and other drives. The reason I ask is for initial transfer of data to the NAS drive it would be easier and faster to connect it into a normal linux system to move the data to the NAS drive on a SATA 2 interface.

Nope. You need to transfer the data across the network. If you tried the above method, when you installed the disk from the linux system into the NAS, it would be initialized for use with the ReadyNAS (wiping your data).

dbott67 wrote:

Gouge wrote: If I do this (ie. individual Raid 0) and one drive fails will the NAS operate still with the remaining drive ie. is the OS installed on each drive or is it held on the Readynas itself? The OS is installed on the disks. A single disk failure of volume C would result in a non-bootable system. Gouge wrote: Also as the format is EXT3 is it possible to connect a raid 0 drive as discussed, up to a Linux system and transfer data between it and other drives. The reason I ask is for initial transfer of data to the NAS drive it would be easier and faster to connect it into a normal linux system to move the data to the NAS drive on a SATA 2 interface. Nope. You need to transfer the data across the network. If you tried the above method, when you installed the disk from the linux system into the NAS, it would be initialized for use with the ReadyNAS (wiping your data).

Assuming the main drive were to fail is it then possible to insert a new drive, initialise it and regain access to the data on drive 2 or is it a case of all data is essentially lost when the primary drive fails.

Also on the second point, assuming the drive has already been initialised in the NAS surely if then removed and connected to another linux machine it is possible to read/write data to it?

TIA

G

After walking thru this process myself on a readynas duo (2xbay), once you have setup the first volume (volume c) keep an eye out for the 'add volume' tab at the top of the page to setup the second RAID 0 volume (volume D) - it's an option that you may not have seen before if you've been using xraid in a 2 x bay duo.

Sounds simple, but racing thru the instructions I missed it the first time. Once I set up volume c, i couldn't understand why the buttons and menu options for the second HDD were greyed out under volume settings.

see below:



Further to Gouge questions, I'm keen to know if I can pull out either volume's HDD then duplicate the HDD partion onto a larger disk (using HDD image and resizing apps) and reinsert it into the duo without an issue...(ie manually doing what xraid does), just so i can gradually increase the size of the HDDs without having to a factory reset each time.

Note: I have external usb HDD's taking care of the nightly backups (onto easily readable FAT32s/NTFS) and as the data isn't mission critical, xraid or raid1 isn't worth the sacrifice in space.

Also if i rebuild the volume C (due to a crash), will volume D need to be setup again or will the readynas identify it and add it by default? (i.e. has this scenario been tested?)

I wouldn't try cloning your disks onto larger capacity ones. If you setup a volume for each disk and the disk with Volume C on it fails, Volume D will remain intact. The OS is mirrored across both disks on a separate partition to your data so it can withstand a disk failure. You can put a new disk in, create a new volume C, recreate your shares and restore your data from backup (you should have one if you value your data).

Cloning your disks can be useful for cases related to data recovery. I wouldn't clone ReadyNAS disks for any other purpose.

mdgm wrote:

I wouldn't try cloning your disks onto larger capacity ones. If you setup a volume for each disk and the disk with Volume C on it fails, Volume D will remain intact. The OS is mirrored across both disks on a separate partition to your data so it can withstand a disk failure. You can put a new disk in, create a new volume C, recreate your shares and restore your data from backup (you should have one if you value your data). Cloning your disks can be useful for cases related to data recovery. I wouldn't clone ReadyNAS disks for any other purpose.

If you use software such as Clonezilla, & set it up to do a sector by sector copy, where do you see the danger mdgm?

[edit:] That was said with the respect that I believe you know I have for you mdgm. Just thought I should add that. :)

HI,I'm try to get a flex-raid and I have a problem, I'm tired to call netgear and get nothing, I reset to factory but then the creating volume and boot take more than 10 minutes when I go to the setup the X-raid is allready set, I did this process more than 7 times with not results. I have the this is the process that take more than 15 minutes
installing
creating volume
boot
then when I go to setup the X-Raid is allready set, I have not options to chose X-Raid or Flex-Raid

RND2000 with firmware 4.1.7
any help is appreciate, thanks

This reply is too late for amatheu I expect. All you have to do is read the very clear & helpful answers to the thread's question, by dbott67 on the previous page.