readynas 3100

what firmware are you running?

There is an 8 TB expansion limit over the life of the volume. You will exceed that threshold in this case (you are expanding by 9 TB in this upgrade, and you may have expanded sometime in the past).

The recommended path is to back up the data, power down, replace all drives, then power up. The NAS will do a factory install on the new drives. From there, you rebuild the configuration (reinstall add-ons, restore the config files, then restore the data). The order matters - you need to reinstall add-ons before restoring the config files.

I am running 4.2.25 firmware. Updated one is 4.2.26.

Thanks for the recommended Path, but need to know is there any possibility to upgrade it without turning off the readynas 3100.

There is an off-line expansion path that you could use, if you search the forum you can find it. The NAS would need to be out of service during the expansion itself, but if it succeeds you wouldn't need to reload the data. There is risk, so you should have a full backup before proceeding. (you should have a full backup in any event).

Note also that the NAS performance will be reduced during expansion.

Hey Stephen,
I really appreciate your help, Now I am trying to do it, as you said in your post.

One more thing if you can help please,
Can I update the firmware without turning it off.
Means I can not shut it down but I would like to upgrade it or else I have to do it on saturday.

Thanks

The upgrade will require a reboot.

Hi ,
as per your recommendation, I returned 4TB hdd and bought 3TB HDD.

Can I now hot swap.

Thanks

If you started with a 3 TB volume at your initial install, then you can expand to 11 TB. 4x3TB would expand to 9 TB, which is under the limit.

So assuming we are correct on the 3 TB initial install, you should be able to hot-swap one drive at a time.

A backup is recommended, since the RAID array is unprotected during expansion.

Hi,

I really appreciate your help.
One more question is how can I backup my readynas.
Is there any simple way to back it up.

Thanks

Frontview backup can be used to back up shares to a USB drive or another NAS. It is faster to use PC tools (perhaps Robocopy) if you want to back up to a Windows PC. Network backup is generally faster than using one of the NAS USB ports.

Hi Stephen,

I upgrade it, it was working perfectly fine until I tried another disk.
As soon as I pulled out 2nd disk, First disk which I upgraded already and was working fine goes dead.
If you want I can Send screen shots too.

Now I am not able to pull my data, it is not showing anything at all.

Can you help me please.

Thanks
Suraj Sharma