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Question about increasing capacity in RN428 - replacing 4TB drives with 12TB drives
I have a 428 with 8 x 4TB drives (Ironwolf) in 1 volume with RAID6.
I want to expand the capacity. So I have replaced 3 of the drives with 12TB Ironwolfs that are on the Netgear supported list. I replace 1 at a time, allowing the rebuild to complete. I have now replaced all 3 and after rebuilding completed, there is no increase in usable capacity.
I have done this before on a smaller RN104. On that one, I had 4 x3TB and started replacing the 3TB drives with 4TB. As soon as the 2nd one rebuilt, 1TB was added to the capacity.
With this 428, I expected it might take 3 new drives to see more capacity since the unit seems to automatically use 2 drives as spares in the RAID.
But after 3 drives have been upgraded from 4TB to 12TB and no capacity has been added, I'm reluctant to keep adding drives just to find out.
I can try Netgear support if necessary but hoping somewhere here might be able to point me in the right direction.
MrBigabbey wrote:
I have done this before on a smaller RN104. On that one, I had 4 x3TB and started replacing the 3TB drives with 4TB. As soon as the 2nd one rebuilt, 1TB was added to the capacity.
The RN104 must have been using single redundancy (XRAID/RAID5)
MrBigabbey wrote:
I have a 428 with 8 x 4TB drives (Ironwolf) in 1 volume with RAID6.
I want to expand the capacity. So I have replaced 3 of the drives with 12TB Ironwolfs
Dual redundancy/RAID6 requires four drives to be upgraded before the capacity increases. So you need to get one more Ironwolf.
MrBigabbey wrote:
...that are on the Netgear supported list.
Long neglected, so best to ignore it. NAS purposed drives are ok, with one exception - the WD Red drives are SMR, and should be avoided. WD Red Plus and Red Pro are fine. Enterprise-class drives are also fine.
MrBigabbey wrote:I can try Netgear support
You won't be able to get support. Netgear is clearly exiting the ReadyNAS business. You can still get warranty replacements, but that's all.
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MrBigabbey wrote:
I have done this before on a smaller RN104. On that one, I had 4 x3TB and started replacing the 3TB drives with 4TB. As soon as the 2nd one rebuilt, 1TB was added to the capacity.
The RN104 must have been using single redundancy (XRAID/RAID5)
MrBigabbey wrote:
I have a 428 with 8 x 4TB drives (Ironwolf) in 1 volume with RAID6.
I want to expand the capacity. So I have replaced 3 of the drives with 12TB Ironwolfs
Dual redundancy/RAID6 requires four drives to be upgraded before the capacity increases. So you need to get one more Ironwolf.
MrBigabbey wrote:
...that are on the Netgear supported list.
Long neglected, so best to ignore it. NAS purposed drives are ok, with one exception - the WD Red drives are SMR, and should be avoided. WD Red Plus and Red Pro are fine. Enterprise-class drives are also fine.
MrBigabbey wrote:I can try Netgear support
You won't be able to get support. Netgear is clearly exiting the ReadyNAS business. You can still get warranty replacements, but that's all.
Thanks for the great answer. I will get a 4th drive.
Good to know about them exiting the busy. I guess it's also time to look for something else like a Synology.
I should add this caveat - if you encrypted the volume, then it won't expand. The only option there is to destroy it and create a new one. That will of course require you to recreate shares, backup jobs, etc - and restore all the data from backup.
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