Hi Everyone. I purchased and setup my Readynas Pro Pioneer around Jan 2010. Aside from one disk issue (increasing errors, which Seagate replaced under warranty) it has been a nice experience. I am now running out of space (less than 20% capacity remaining) and would like some advice on expansion.Here is are details around my setup.4 Seagate 1TB's (ST331000528AS)X-RAID2, 4 disks with dual redundancyFirmware: 4.2.12I would like advice on how best to INCREMENTALLY increase my capacity over time - with the immediate need to upgrade at least another 1TB-2TB (which should at least last me through the end of 2015). Any explanations/advice even simple explanations like increase one disk (1TB) to immediately increase storage by 1TB or upgrade to larger drive now to make future upgrades easier would be greatly appreciated.I have forgotten with my 4 disk dual redundancy setup, what happens when I simply add one disk of same capacity or one disk of higher capacity.Is there a known maximum storage for this unit? (while keeping X-RAID2 w/ dual redundancy) ?Also, any recommendations of disks would be great (and vendors to buy from). I am thinking of spending more for the enterprise versions which have longer warranties. I have reviewed the current HCL and at least for the Hitachi and Seagate 2TB enterprise disks, but cannot find them at Tiger Direct or Directron (places I ordered things from before).Thanks!

I am thinking the 17:30:19 "Disk failure detected." is a consequence of the removal. winger13 wrote: What do you mean 'I hope Netgear will comment' ? I haven't sent them this question, only posted here for the wonderful user's community! The 18:00:27 "The disk on channel 1 has failed. Shutting down the system to prevent possible data loss resulting from additional failed drives." happens well after the disk insertion. It'd be useful if Netgear could identify what triggered this error. Several Netgear employees are active in this forum. It does sound like your system is behaving normally now.

With dual redundancy, you will need to upgrade all four of your disks to get more storage space. So small steps probably don't make much sense. For NAS drives (seagate NAS or WDC Red) 4x2TB would cost ~$400 US and gain you 2 TB of storage. 4x3TB would cost ~$550 but gain you 4 TB - twice as big an increase. As far as drive choices, I suggest the WD30EFRX (3 TB drives). They aren't enterprise, but they are intended for NAS, and have 3 year warranties (much better than the 1 year that the desktop drives have). They are also the newest 3 TB drive on the HCL. I use them in my pro-6 and my RN102, and have had no issues with them at all.If you go off the HCL, Netgear will likely deny support - and you do have about a year of warranty left.There are two expansion limits (a)you can't exceed 16 TiB total volume size. That wouldn't apply to you until someone makes > 8 TB drives.(b) You can't grow a volume more than 8 TiB over its lifetime. If you started with this configuration, you could expand up to 4x5TB. So you have plenty of headroom.

Thanks StephenB. I vaguely remembering when I first purchased (and I am looking at my my hand-written notes now, which are shabby at best) I can fill up current empty slots 5 and 6 to increase capacity and maintain dual redundancy. This is why I left two empty slots. Like, maybe adding one 2TB into slots 5 and 6 will add at least 1TB capacity over what I have now (or is that 2TB ) ? Later, I can replace the existing 1TB's in pairs (like, if I replaced 2 more 1TB's with 2TB's I gain another 1TB). Am I misunderstanding something?

I was assuming you had a four slot unit. You can get more space by using your two empty slots. If you add 2 more disks ( 1 TB or greater) then your array will expand by 2 TB, and any extra will be wasted for now, until you upgrade the second pair to the larger size. You are still subject to the 8 TiB growth limit, so you couldn't expand the volume beyond 10 TiB unless you do a factory reset.So then the question becomes how big you want the larger drive size to be. It is more cost-effective to use bigger drives if you look at GB/dollar. But of course the drives do cost more. Also, your storage needs appear to be pretty small, since the 2 TB volume you have now has lasted you 4 years.So options are likely 2 TB drives or 3 TB drives. At current pricing if you use WDC Red drives:(1) adding 2x2TB will cost $220 (Amazon). You gain 2 TB of space - double what you have now.(2) Upgrading 1 pair costs another $220. You can another 2 TB of space.(3) upgrading the last pair costs another $220. You gain 2 TB of space.So the total project is $660 for 6 TB.Doing the same with 3 TB drives gives you(1) Adding 2x3TB costs you $260. You gain 2 TB of space(2) upgrading another pair costs you another $260. But you gain 4 TB of space.(3) upgrading the final pair costs you another $260. You gain another 4 TB, but you need to do a factory reset.(3a) upgrading just one of the final drives costs $130, and gains you 2 TB without the reset.Stopping at step (2) gives you 6 TB of growth for only $520 - $140 cheaper than going with 2 TB.Basically the price difference between 2TB and 3TB drives is small enough ($20 at the moment) that you might as well go with 3 TB.If you want to stick with enterprise drives, you can do the same math easily enough with whatever models you want to use.

Also, you should update your firmware, 4.2.12 is very old.

Ready for expansion (RN Pro Pioneer Edition)-Seeking Advice

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Aug 23, 2014
You could try contacting support via the email link on the Contact Us page on support.netgear.com
winger13
Guide
Aug 24, 2014
Reading back on this thread, one thing I forgot to do was perform a scrub prior to expanding my volume. Immediately after the upgrades, disk 2 threw 12 ATA errors..should I be concerned? What difference, if any, would have made? Maybe I do not understand what a scrub does (though sounds like a hot bath to me : ) )
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Aug 24, 2014
Have you contacted support?

What brand and model disks are installed?
winger13
Guide
Aug 24, 2014
No on the support. See first post on this thread the make and model of the hard drive, but basically its a 4.5 years old 1TB Seagate Barracuda (on HCL One ending with 528AS.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Aug 24, 2014
Disk 2 might be failing.

Is your volume redundant?

If so can you test it using SeaTools?
winger13
Guide
Aug 25, 2014
Three things:

1. To answer your questions, the NAS is setup as XRAID2 with Dual Redundancy. Why are you asking about the redundancy?

2. I ran the SeaTools from my desktop by first installing the tool on the desktop, powered down the NAS, removed disk 2, hooked it to my desktop via my USB SATA docking station, then ran Seatools from the desktop. I ran following three tests:
-Short Drive Self Test---> passed
-Short Generic---> passed
-Long Generic---> passed

I did not run the Advanced Test because the notes state the following:
The Advanced Tests menu has options that could erase your data or make the drive unusable for your system. If you continue you could lose data...

On another note, when I purchased the Seagate 1TBs, I did so after seeing on the ReadyNAS HCL that this model has a 5-year warranty. Today, Seagate support tells me this has a 3-year warranty. Unfortunately, my receipt (from Directron) does not show the disk's Seagate warranty info. Where can I get a printout stating the 5-year warranty?
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Aug 25, 2014
Our compatibility list should be seen as a guide. The warranty may not be the same in all regions and you should check with the specs on the drive manufacturer's website etc. to confirm the specs.

Also drive manufacturers have been known to change their warranty policy over time. So it's possible that when the drive originally launched it might have had a 5 year warranty but later units had shorter warranties.

StephenB

Guru - Experienced User

Aug 25, 2014

mdgm wrote:
...Also drive manufacturers have been known to change their warranty policy over time. So it's possible that when the drive originally launched it might have had a 5 year warranty but later units had shorter warranties...

mdgm wrote:
...Also drive manufacturers have been known to change their warranty policy over time. So it's possible that when the drive originally launched it might have had a 5 year warranty but later units had shorter warranties...

With Seagate you need to use their warranty checker to tell the warranty status. You'll need to have the drive model, serial number, and country of purchase info - and enter a captcha...

Warranties have changed over time (desktop drives now being only 1 year), and I believe Seagate's warranty doesn't cover drives earmarked for OEM sale but purchased by end users.

Anyway, the warranty checker is here: http://support.seagate.com/customer/en- ... dation.jsp

winger13
Guide
Aug 25, 2014
I already used this Warranty Checker. While it says warranty has expired, it does not state when warranty ran out. It is too bad my receipt does not state Seagate's warranty info. ReadyNAS' HCL still says 5 years for my disk, I may have looked at that when I bought.

To the drive - ATA has not increased in two days since it went from 0 to 12. Also, based on the three Seatool tests I ran, what are folks' assessment?
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Aug 25, 2014
Well I'd suggest a backup and then replacing all the old disks with newer ones.

Considering the expansion limitations, a factory reset (wipes all data, settings, everything) with the new disks in place then restore from backup would be a good way to go.

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Ready for expansion (RN Pro Pioneer Edition)-Seeking Advice

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