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More storage
Using a ReadyNAS 2100 v2. Got 4x 1TB HDD running RAID 5. Im totally new to this NAS and RAID stuff. Can I just swap out one of the HDD to a bigger one? Will I loose data? Currently using about 7...
You cannot replace two at the same time,. You would need to swap out one, wait for the RAID to re-sync, the swap another and wait for a re-sync and then the expansion.
Frankly, other than to test out the NAS, using 1TB drives was probably a bad idea. IMHO, your best bet is to start over. Back up your data and start over with two drives in XRAID where each one is at least big enough for your current needs. That will give you a RAID1 the size of one of the drives. But when you need more space, you just insert one more of the same size and it changes to RAID5, expanding by the size of the drive. Then you still have an empty slot to do the same again when you need more. In today's market, I wouldn't start with anything less than 8TB drives.
It says I’m on Flex raid. On OS 6.. it says it’s happy to change to X-Raid for expansion no idea what will happen to my data if I did this.
What options have I got? Haha
What options have I got? Haha
Tristyd wrote:
It says I’m on Flex raid. On OS 6.. it says it’s happy to change to X-Raid for expansion no idea what will happen to my data if I did this.
You won't lose data by switching to X-Raid
- So what benefits will I get to xraid? In terms of swapping hard drives?
If you haven't seen the manuals for your NAS, you might look here:
- https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/READYNAS_OS_6_SM_EN.pdf
- https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RNDU2000/RackMount_HW_2June11.pdf
Since you are planning to replace drives - it is best to avoid desktop-class drives. Many use a technology called SMR, which is not well suited to NAS. You can go with either NAS-puposed drives (WD Red Plus, Seagate Ironwolf), or enterprise class drives. (Avoid the WD Red - although WD sells it for NAS, they also use SMR).
Tristyd wrote:
So what benefits will I get to xraid? In terms of swapping hard drives?First of all, X-RAID does use standard linux RAID. It is simply a management package put on top of RAID to simplify management.
The expansion you want to do (replacing disks with larger ones) is called "Vertical Expansion" With FlexRAID, you need to upgrade all the disks to the new size in order to get any expansion. With X-RAID, you only need to upgrade two drives.
So with FlexRAID, you could get four 2 TB drives, and increase your storage by 3 TB (doubling it). If you get NAS-purposed drives the cost would be about $75 each, or $300 total. When you run out of space again, you'll need to replace all four drives again.
With X-RAID, you could instead get two 4 TB drives - which would also increase your storage by 3 TB. NAS purposed 4 TB drives cost about $100, or $200 total. When you run out of space again, you can upgrade one of the remaining 1 TB drives to 4 TB, and gain another 3 TB of space.
Or get two 8 TB drives for just a bit more than four 2 TB drives, and gain 7 TB of storage space. Upgrade one later on, and gain another 7 TB of space.
Note the capacity rule for single redundancy is "sum the disks and subtract the largest". With X-RAID, you need to either replace a drive with one of the same size, or upgrade it to one that is at least as large as the biggest drive already in the volume. If you use an intermediate size, the NAS will accept it, but you will not get the full amount of storage space.
- Thanks for this
So sounds like X-RAID is easier and cheaper? As I don’t need to replace all drives like in Flex-RAID?
Can I switch from Flex to X RAID and not loose data? It allows me to switch in the admin page, doest give any data loss warning if I continue.
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