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Multiple Vertical Expansions --> Performance Drop? --> 'Refresh' X-RAID2 without Factory Default?
Hi All, My TL;DR question is: - Would multiple X-RAID2 expansions cause a degradation in SMB write performance and if so, is there a way of recreating the X-RAID2 array and Volume/Shares from...
alcester01 wrote:
On reaching the data limit of my Primary NAS, I decided to buy 2x8TB drives and perform another vertical expansion.
What is the manufacturer/model of the disks? Did you double-check that they are CMR and not SMR?
Have you ever used any of the maintenance functions on the volume settings wheel?
alcester01 wrote:
I believe that the various expansions over time may have caused this, but I'm not sure. I understand that the expansion process might add RAID layers which are invisible to me through the admin UI, but which might cause overhead.
First, you do have multiple RAID layers in your volume
- 4x3TB (likely what you started with) would have given you a 4x3 TB RAID-5 group
- 2x3+2x6TB would have added a 2x3 TB RAID-1 group
- 2x3+2x8TB would have added a second 2x2 TB RAID-1 group
This normally shouldn't hurt performance.
But I do think you should run a balance from the volume settings wheel, and see if that helps. If you have a lot of snapshots, you might also want to delete them, and then do a defrag.
Also, I suggest downloading the full log zip from the logs page, and looking in there for any disk-related errors.
2x3TB+2x8TB requires at least two RAID groups. Consolidation without destroying the volume is difficult (and risky), and would only consolidate the two RAID-1 group into a single 2x5TB group.
Hi StephenB ,
Many thanks for your reply...
The new disks are Seagate Ironwolf 8TB (ST8000VN004) and the 'reused' 6TB are Seagate Ironwolf (ST6000VN001). I believe these are CMR.
I'm happy to try a Balance first and then the snapshot delete/defrag to see if that yields some improvement.
The maintenance history in the Primary NAS log shows: -
=== maintenance history ===
device operation start_time end_time result details
---------- --------- ------------------- ------------------- --------- ----------------------------------------------------------------
data resilver 2017-04-24 14:15:19
data resilver 2017-04-24 14:19:23 2017-04-25 08:26:10 completed
data defrag 2017-08-18 23:41:42 2017-08-19 00:53:13 completed
data balance 2017-08-19 00:00:25 2017-08-19 00:52:45 completed Done, had to relocate 7 out of 6374 chunks
data balance 2020-02-11 18:27:11 2020-02-11 18:33:42 completed Done, had to relocate 9 out of 7031 chunks
data resilver 2021-05-20 11:09:46 2021-05-20 21:06:45 completed
data resilver 2021-05-22 12:36:55 2021-05-23 04:34:46 completed
data resilver 2025-03-04 16:33:03 2025-03-05 18:04:47 completed
data resilver 2025-03-06 15:14:13 2025-03-07 10:06:56 completed
data resilver 2025-03-07 10:29:00 2025-03-08 03:56:04 completed
data resilver 2025-03-08 06:44:39 2025-03-08 15:47:04 completed
data resilver 2025-03-08 15:47:15 2025-03-09 13:41:31 completed
alcester01 wrote:
The new disks are Seagate Ironwolf 8TB (ST8000VN004) and the 'reused' 6TB are Seagate Ironwolf (ST6000VN001). I believe these are CMR.
Yes, they are well suited for ReadyNAS.
I carried out the Balance but couldn't see any obvious improvement so I then removed the Snapshots and Defrag'd.
Write speed for large files is still hovering around 40MB/s. For multiple small files it is anywhere from 25 to 40 MB/s. This is as reported by Windows Explorer (I appreciate this may not be the most scientific method of measurement).
I'll keep monitoring it to see if there is any improvement. In the meantime, thank you very much for your support and suggestions.
alcester01 wrote:
I carried out the Balance but couldn't see any obvious improvement so I then removed the Snapshots and Defrag'd.
Try running another balance. My suggestion was to run the balance after you cleaned up the snapshots.
How large are the "large files" you are testing with?
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