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Forum Discussion
Readynas 104 drops out when copying to it
I have a readynas 104 configured with four 4tb drives in raid 5. I've managed to copy about 6tb onto the device without issue but now whenever I go to copy something onto the box, lets say a single 4...
What you should understand is that current Netgear firmware is too old to support this size change in BTRFS configuration. Everything you need is to update the BTRFS driver and convert your BTRFS volumes. Once converted the BTRFS will only be readable by something which has the support for reading that particular configuration, meaning actual Netgear firmware won't be able to. it would be like asking windows 3.1 to read 4Tbytes NTFS drives.
As far as I know you can do it by yourself, but that's really risky.
=> I think BTRFS driver is in the kernel, meaning you'll have to compile the kernel with linux official sources (or at least play a little with initrd depending how Netgear integrated the driver)
=> then boot on it (but kernel compilation is never risk free, usually you got grub coming to rescue but with no video out...)
=> create a volume with the good parameters (meaning shrinking the existing volume before)
=> move data from one volume to the other, shrink as many times as needed depending on the available space
=> then edit the FSTAB
=> check if everything's all right
=> delete the old volume
=> extend the new volume
=> try a reboot just to be sure you won't have any surprise after a power outage.
if you try after a factory reset, all the shrink/extend/move thing is unnecessary, just delete and recreate the volume with new parameters, I believe parameters are passed while formatting so you should only have one command to send, but you'll still need a good kernel before.
So possible, but not really safe and far from easy if you're not a linux admin. And guess what, not supported by Netgear of course. So if you run into trouble and need help, you'll be alone. So I really DON'T ADVISE to do this unless you know what you are doing and do some background checks on what I said to be sure.
As said by mdgm, going back from 6.1.5 shouldn't be possible, you would end up with an unreadable data partition (and maybe system if they convert it too). But if you are into it, the manual kernel update should allow you to read the data partition again after the downgrade, this admitting the firmware boots in the first place (meaning system volume was not converted), if it doesn't you will be forced to factory default losing all the data.
I'm also curious on how the boot loader is handled. There are 2 ways to do it.
=> The PC way which is having a bios/EFI loading the good device, and then a boot loader on that device. This is a safe way since messing with the boot loader will be corrected by a reinstallation, made possible by booting on the flash.
=> the dumb way which is installing a unique bootloader on the flash and if you mess it too much, you won't even be able to factory reset.
I believe (and really hope) Netgear chose the first one since it's the easiest (since debian was made to do this by default) and the safest but I'd like this to be confirmed.
As far as I know you can do it by yourself, but that's really risky.
=> I think BTRFS driver is in the kernel, meaning you'll have to compile the kernel with linux official sources (or at least play a little with initrd depending how Netgear integrated the driver)
=> then boot on it (but kernel compilation is never risk free, usually you got grub coming to rescue but with no video out...)
=> create a volume with the good parameters (meaning shrinking the existing volume before)
=> move data from one volume to the other, shrink as many times as needed depending on the available space
=> then edit the FSTAB
=> check if everything's all right
=> delete the old volume
=> extend the new volume
=> try a reboot just to be sure you won't have any surprise after a power outage.
if you try after a factory reset, all the shrink/extend/move thing is unnecessary, just delete and recreate the volume with new parameters, I believe parameters are passed while formatting so you should only have one command to send, but you'll still need a good kernel before.
So possible, but not really safe and far from easy if you're not a linux admin. And guess what, not supported by Netgear of course. So if you run into trouble and need help, you'll be alone. So I really DON'T ADVISE to do this unless you know what you are doing and do some background checks on what I said to be sure.
As said by mdgm, going back from 6.1.5 shouldn't be possible, you would end up with an unreadable data partition (and maybe system if they convert it too). But if you are into it, the manual kernel update should allow you to read the data partition again after the downgrade, this admitting the firmware boots in the first place (meaning system volume was not converted), if it doesn't you will be forced to factory default losing all the data.
I'm also curious on how the boot loader is handled. There are 2 ways to do it.
=> The PC way which is having a bios/EFI loading the good device, and then a boot loader on that device. This is a safe way since messing with the boot loader will be corrected by a reinstallation, made possible by booting on the flash.
=> the dumb way which is installing a unique bootloader on the flash and if you mess it too much, you won't even be able to factory reset.
I believe (and really hope) Netgear chose the first one since it's the easiest (since debian was made to do this by default) and the safest but I'd like this to be confirmed.
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