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Forum Discussion
Messed up trying to upgrade drives, help!
Hi, I could use some help upgrading the drives in my ReadyNAS RN212. I had 2 Seagate 6TB drives in RAID1, and wanted to upgrade to 2 12TB drives. I don't think I followed the correct procedure in doing so. Hopefully someone can get me back on track.
What I did:
- Hot-swapped the 6GB drive in bay #2 for 12TB drive. It synced with the 6TB no problem, everything green in the Volumes RAID display. I put aside 6GB drive #2.
- Then I went to swap 6GB drive in bay #1. I thought that all I needed to do was hot-swap it, and then the 12TB in bay #2 would sync to the new 12TB drive.
- What happened was I lost access to the web admin dashboard, and since the LEDs were not flashing like they were syncing, I decided to revert back to the 6GB #1.
- So I powered down, and put 6GB #1 back in bay #1.
- However, when powered back up, and accessed the web dashboard, I saw that the drives were now re-syncing, which I did not want since 12TB #2 had already synced.
- Powered down again, and decided to try and assess the state of the drives.
- Pulled the 12TB #2, and powered up with only 6GB #1.
- Volumes dashboard then showed the 6GB #1 as red, RAID1, and with 5.45TB data present.
- Plugged the 12TB #2 (that had previously synced), and it also shows as red, no RAID type, no data present.
How it stands and how to proceed:
So I currently have only the 6GB #2 plugged in, it's showing green, RAID1, with all 5.45TB data present. Now I want to properly upgrade to my 2 12TB drives.
How do I get these new drives setup in RAID1, with my 5.45TB data from the single working 6TB drive synced over? Can it be done via hot-swapping & syncing, or must I start with the 12TB as empty RAID1 and manually copy the data?
Thanks very much for any help!
Scott
2 Replies
Can't seem to edit my post, but some corrections:
- Everywhere I wrote "6GB", should be "6TB"- Current data is at 4.45TB, not 5.45.
Your procedure was the correct one.
I'd start by testing the two new drives in a Windows PC using Seatools. I always start with the non-destructive full test, and follow up with the full write-zeros test. That will take awhile (perhaps one day per drive) - but it will give some assurance that both disks are ok. I have purchased some drives that passed one of these tests out of the box, but failed the other. You can connect the drives with directly with SATA (assuming a desktop PC) or get a USB-SATA dock.
Assuming the drives pass, then boot up the NAS with only the 6 TB drive installed in slot 2. Then hot-insert one of the (now blank) 12 TB drives in slot 1. That should resync.
Once you are sure the resync has completed, you can then try hot-swapping drive 2 again.
However, when powered back up, and accessed the web dashboard, I saw that the drives were now re-syncing, which I did not want since 12TB #2 had already synced.
Likely disk 1 was being resynced to disk 2. Probably not an error, and interrupting that sync explains why disk 1 is now red.
One thing you should do for extra data safety is to connect the 6 TB drive from slot 1 to a PC and format it there. Then copy your data to that drive over the network. You have no redundancy at the moment, so any problems with drive 2 will result in data loss.
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