I have a RN104 with a 4Tb drive (6.2.0) (currently pretty full, 525GB free of 3.49TB, but I may be able to free ~1.6 TB).I am waiting for delivery of 2 x 4TB (WD-Red). I wish to have a simple X-RAID2 with a single volume of ~8Tb capacity (and eventually add a 4th disk)Can I go DIRECTLY from JBOD to X-RAID2 (avoiding the 104 to go RAID1 and then change again to X-RAID2 as soon as I add the second disk), by adding both disks at the same time or by simply instructing it to do so?Or do I need to convert (if possible) to X-RAID2 before adding the two new disks? and if so, how much free space do I need on the initial disk? at least half of it, or there is some extra overhead?If a "hot-insert" force a resinch anyhow, should I also cold-insert or hot-insert the disks (meaning that the disks should be added with the 104 being powered off for a cold-insert or on for a hot-insert) ?Many thanks, Berillio

If you manually changed to flexraid, then you can simply change that back right now. There is no extra overhead.If you never did that, then you are already running xraid2 (just with one disk). Hot inserting is recommended, as that makes it very clear to the firmware that a new disk is being inserted. You can insert both at once, though I generally do one at a time (waiting for the resync to complete). Either way it will process one disk at a time.The first disk will convert your existing volume to single redundancy, so there is no space gain. The second disk will increase the volume to 8 TB - which will be shown in the web ui as ~ 7 TiB.There is no need to free up data first (the expansion process operates on the physical disks, so an empty volume takes the same processing time as a full one). Always a good idea to update your backup before inserting disks.

Hi Stephen, thanks for coming backThe volume is definitely a JBOD, but to my surprise I have a green button on the right saying "X-RAID", and if i click on it , it asks me to confirm that I wish to opt out of xraid, which I do not wish to. Then hot inserting one disk should lead to proper xraid2 based on two disks (not a raid1 with mirrowing), which is what I wish.The following disk will add extra capacity (after sinching again).Thanks, berilliop.s. you are already running xraid2 (just with one disk)I did not realize that you could have x-raid2 with ONLY one disk !. Does it mean that the 104 is in a "fitticious" xraid (it says JBOD under the pie diagram with the disk usage on the left), basically ready to become a "proper" xraid2 once i install another disk? or that the data in that single disk is already "striped" in some sort of way, to give the user a degree of data security?

xraid2 is an application on top of normal RAID. It automatically changes from jbod to raid-1 to raid-5 as you add more disks.So as I said above, adding the first disk adds redundancy (and the volume is in fact converted to RAID-1 under xraid2 management). Adding the third disk will increase space while preserving the redundancy (and the volume is converted again to RAID-5 under xraid2 management).

OK so the conversion to RAID-1 will happen anyhow, as the disk are dealt one by one and one cannot go directly to RAID-5 (because that needs 3 disks).I was only trying to avoid an extra step which might have not been necessary.Once the disk will be delivered (I expected them this afternoon but no joy so far) I will fit them to the caddies and hot-insert them one by one, as advisedI'll report when the full expansion will have taken place.Thanks for the support, berillio

Disks been delivered in the morning, one disk installed in bay 2 at 10:04am. resynching finished at 9:22pm. Second disk installed in bay 3 and rebuilding volume started at @ 10:48.

JBOD to X-RAID2 on a 104 | NETGEAR Communities

11 Replies

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StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Apr 09, 2015
If you manually changed to flexraid, then you can simply change that back right now. There is no extra overhead.

If you never did that, then you are already running xraid2 (just with one disk).

Hot inserting is recommended, as that makes it very clear to the firmware that a new disk is being inserted. You can insert both at once, though I generally do one at a time (waiting for the resync to complete). Either way it will process one disk at a time.

The first disk will convert your existing volume to single redundancy, so there is no space gain. The second disk will increase the volume to 8 TB - which will be shown in the web ui as ~ 7 TiB.

There is no need to free up data first (the expansion process operates on the physical disks, so an empty volume takes the same processing time as a full one).

Always a good idea to update your backup before inserting disks.
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 09, 2015
Hi Stephen, thanks for coming back
The volume is definitely a JBOD, but to my surprise I have a green button on the right saying "X-RAID", and if i click on it , it asks me to confirm that I wish to opt out of xraid, which I do not wish to.
Then hot inserting one disk should lead to proper xraid2 based on two disks (not a raid1 with mirrowing), which is what I wish.
The following disk will add extra capacity (after sinching again).
Thanks, berillio

p.s.
you are already running xraid2 (just with one disk)

I did not realize that you could have x-raid2 with ONLY one disk !. Does it mean that the 104 is in a "fitticious" xraid (it says JBOD under the pie diagram with the disk usage on the left), basically ready to become a "proper" xraid2 once i install another disk? or that the data in that single disk is already "striped" in some sort of way, to give the user a degree of data security?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Apr 09, 2015
xraid2 is an application on top of normal RAID. It automatically changes from jbod to raid-1 to raid-5 as you add more disks.

So as I said above, adding the first disk adds redundancy (and the volume is in fact converted to RAID-1 under xraid2 management). Adding the third disk will increase space while preserving the redundancy (and the volume is converted again to RAID-5 under xraid2 management).
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 09, 2015
OK so the conversion to RAID-1 will happen anyhow, as the disk are dealt one by one and one cannot go directly to RAID-5 (because that needs 3 disks).
I was only trying to avoid an extra step which might have not been necessary.

Once the disk will be delivered (I expected them this afternoon but no joy so far) I will fit them to the caddies and hot-insert them one by one, as advised
I'll report when the full expansion will have taken place.
Thanks for the support, berillio
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 10, 2015
Disks been delivered in the morning, one disk installed in bay 2 at 10:04am. resynching finished at 9:22pm. Second disk installed in bay 3 and rebuilding volume started at @ 10:48.
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 13, 2015
Sunday 12-04-2015. Away from home, checking mails, mail from NAS,
12-04-2015 0:00:43 Miscellaneous: Snapshot 'c_1428793243' is successfully created for share or LUN 'readydrop'.
12-04-2015 3:00:02 System: Scheduled poweroff was delayed.
12-04-201513:02:52 Volume: Volume 'data' has been rebuilt.
Then
13:07:25 Volume: Volume 'data' usage exceeds 95 % of size (3.5 TB).
But… I just added a 3rd disk, the Volume should be 2x 3.5 TB….?????
Same warning mail received every 10 minutes until I come back home, at 1:00a.m., for a total of 681 emails so far.
Back home, flick the switch to wake up NAS display, …58% free…
Refresh dashboard. 4.19TB of 7.13TB free (58.76% - fine….)
What’s the fuss all about?
But NAS continues to mail warnings. Even after I woke up display, refreshed dashboard and checking logs.
Overview: data = 4.19 of 7.13 TB
Volume: Pie charts looks fine, 2.94 used 4.19 free
Just received another warning. (the third since back home and checking NAS)
Decided to reboot NAS (what else to do?)
Try to reboot the NAS using the Dashboard Power button: Popup windows saying “The device is busy”, but while taking note Windows alerts me that NAS has disappeared from the file explorer, NAS is rebooting.
Back to the Log page, Monday 13.04.2015,
1:03:43 System: ReadyNASOS background service started.
1:33 Refreshed the log page. Warnings seem to have stopped.after the reboot.

But why the incorrect warnings in the first place?.
I have the 6.2.0 firmware installed. I checked the upgrades/bug fixes in 6.2.1 and 6.2.2: I don’t see anything relating to incorrect warnings.
There is a bag fix on 6.2.2 relating to volume expansion, but my expansion DID complete.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Apr 15, 2015
Can you send in your logs (see the Sending Logs link in my sig)?
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 16, 2015
Sure, done, thank you for asking :-)
104 performing OK after the reboot
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Apr 20, 2015
Yes that looks good now.
berillio
Aspirant
Apr 20, 2015
why the flurry of warnings? like the "working "part of the 104 not talking to the "reporting" part..