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Forum Discussion
Issue with expanding storage in Netgear Ready NAS 4312S
Hello,
We have a Netgear ReadyNAS 4312s with 72T storage (12 * 8TB disks in RAID6). Six months back, we bought a 24-bay Netgear expansion chassis and populated it with 5 8TB disks. We had to create...
>> Once you put in a new drive, you should be able to select Expand in the volume menu.
I missed to add this in the first message, I did try this but nothing is happening when I click the 'Expand' button. Do we have any logs that I can refer to that will help me debug this further?
>> XRAID is not an option with multiple volumes.
Okay, I didn't know that. So, if we have multiple RAID groups, then we cannot have X-raid, right?
>> And by the way, even with RAID6, having that much data not backed up is just asking for trouble.
Yes, I understand. We are in the process of building our backup NAS.
Thanks for your response.
euhr wrote:
>> XRAID is not an option with multiple volumes.
Okay, I didn't know that. So, if we have multiple RAID groups, then we cannot have X-raid, right?
XRAID definitely creates multiple RAID groups when you have mixed disk sizes, but manages them automatically (concatenating them into a single volume). Your issue is a bit different - a volume that spans multiple chassis is problematic, since it depends on both chassis being powered and having a good connection between them. So Netgear has chosen not to allow that in XRAID.
But in FlexRAID you should be able to expand the existing RAID group on the new chassis, or create a new RAID group and concatenate it with your existing volume. For RAID-6, the new RAID group would need at least 4 disks though. There is a guide that might be helpful here: https://www.netgear.com/images/support/WP_ReadyNAS%20FlexRAID%20Optimization%20Guide_18May17.pdf
Okay, I didn't know X-raid will not work across different RAID groups.
FTR, we have 12 * 8TB hard disks in the NAS and 5 * 8TB disks in the Netgear expansion chassis. We added a 6 disk now.
Expansion chassis and NAS is connected via standard SAS cable.
And when I click Expand, nothing happens. Any thoughts on that? Any log files that I can refer to?
euhr wrote:
Okay, I didn't know X-raid will not work across different RAID groups.
Again it does use multiple RAID groups, though they aren't structured like yours are. It won't let you switch to XRAID because XRAID won't let a volume span two chassis.
In general you can always switch from XRAID to FlexRAID, but you can't always switch in the reverse direction.
euhr wrote:
And when I click Expand, nothing happens. Any thoughts on that? Any log files that I can refer to?
You should look at mdstat.log, volume.log, and perhaps rn_expand.log.
Another option is to use paid Netgear support (my.netgear.com).
Have you formatted the new drive first?
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