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Forum Discussion
Newbie - Novice requires Setup Advice
Hi, I'm a complete novice when it comes to NAS, Raid, etc, however have bought some kit, so would like some advice on the best setup for what I want to primarily use, which is: i) Media Stream...
1. Installing 3x3TB drives now all at once will take approximately 8 hours to initialize the drives, install the firmware and do the synchronization process. The drives need to be synchronized sector by sector even though there is no data on them yet. Adding the fourth 3TB (not 4TB) drive will take about the same length of time to resync all 4 drives. I usually add my drives at night and once the process has begun and the percent complete begins to rise, I then go to bed. Please make sure you have a current and complete backup of all the data when you start this process. It is extremely stressful on the drives and if there is a point at which an existing drive is going to fail it is at this point.
2a. It will be a waste of time to do anything to the drives. In fact, anything other than a bare unused new drive will slow you down a bit. The ReadyNAS x-86 uses it's own format and using any drive from a PC or even one of the Sparc or x-86 ReadyNAS units will cause a delay. Worst case, the unit may reject the drive because it thinks there may be data on it and force you to connect the drive to a Windows PC and use the Drive Management tool built into Windows to remove all the current partitions. (Not the same as formatting).
2b. The firmware CC4H or newer is the firmware on the Hard Drive. The current version should be listed on the front label.
2c. It is best to have the drives labeled in some manner so you can tell which one goes in bay1, bay2 etc. so that you can put them back in the same bay if you remove the. If you need to remove a drive for some reason (looking at the label, blowing the dust out of the NAS, etc.) and the drive is good and you want to put it back, do so with the NAS shut down normally. Then reboot only after the drive is reseated. If you remove and then reinsert the drive with the unit on, it will erase the drive and resynch the array. Because I have so many drives spread across a number of machines here at home, I use small press on white labels and number the all the drives. I then keep a spreadsheet of all the drives, make, model, location (incuding the bay on the ReadyNAS units) because they sometimes are recycled. For temporary use, Post-It notes will work. Some write on the label, but that is rather permanent.
2a. It will be a waste of time to do anything to the drives. In fact, anything other than a bare unused new drive will slow you down a bit. The ReadyNAS x-86 uses it's own format and using any drive from a PC or even one of the Sparc or x-86 ReadyNAS units will cause a delay. Worst case, the unit may reject the drive because it thinks there may be data on it and force you to connect the drive to a Windows PC and use the Drive Management tool built into Windows to remove all the current partitions. (Not the same as formatting).
2b. The firmware CC4H or newer is the firmware on the Hard Drive. The current version should be listed on the front label.
2c. It is best to have the drives labeled in some manner so you can tell which one goes in bay1, bay2 etc. so that you can put them back in the same bay if you remove the. If you need to remove a drive for some reason (looking at the label, blowing the dust out of the NAS, etc.) and the drive is good and you want to put it back, do so with the NAS shut down normally. Then reboot only after the drive is reseated. If you remove and then reinsert the drive with the unit on, it will erase the drive and resynch the array. Because I have so many drives spread across a number of machines here at home, I use small press on white labels and number the all the drives. I then keep a spreadsheet of all the drives, make, model, location (incuding the bay on the ReadyNAS units) because they sometimes are recycled. For temporary use, Post-It notes will work. Some write on the label, but that is rather permanent.
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