ReadyNAS NV+ v2 Raid Sync OK, Volume expansion failed?

Hi, I've been using a ReadyNAS NV+ v2 for a few years. Over the past few years, I had reached 3 x 4TB Seagate drives (ST4000VN000-1H4168) and 1 x 2TBWestern Digital Red (WD20EFRX) using X-RAID2 ...

StephenB
Feb 11, 2020
dorsetweevil wrote:

But the sharing protocols and their settings have not restored to their previous setting, despite backing up everything except 'Everything' and 'Data Volumes'. Thankfully I took some screen captures of some of the protocol settings pages, but I would have thought these should have been restored?

Have I done anything daft?!

I've never owned a v2, so I don't have first-hand experience on what settings it saves. I've have also expected protocol settings to be saved/restored though. FWIW, I have seen that not all settings are carried over with OS-6 NAS too, so it is good that you took the screen captures.

Anyway, nothing daft.

dorsetweevil wrote:

As a side-note, I'd love to know what settings/permissions are recommended for NFS and SMB... I'm using the ReadyNAS purely to serve all music and videos to an Nvidia Shield and my Windows PC; all on the same network.

One challenge here is that the software manual doesn't say what settings 5.3.x firmware lets you change. But I'd start with the default settings for both protocols. They will be set to allow anyone on your local network to access the NAS (which sounds like it should be ok for your environment).

Sandshark

Sensei - Experienced User

Jan 20, 2020

Netgear documentation is incomplete when it comes to expansion limits for OS5.x, but I believe it is still limited by the 8TiB max expansion of other legacy models. Depending on what drive configuration you started with all those years ago, you may be hitting that limit. If that is the problem, the only solution is backup, factory default with the new capacity in place, and restore.

dorsetweevil
Aspirant
Jan 20, 2020
StephenB and Sandshark Thank you for the fast reply!

Ahh, the 8TB 'expansion limit' could be the issue... I wasn't aware of that! Dissapointing. But this would explain why RAIDar (and the Dashboard) both show the drive 'green'/OK, but with no extra capacity (the total useable size is unchanged since the 2TB was swapped out for the 4TB).

I now have some decisions to make... factory re-set and install from backup (a huge amount of work, but yes... I do have backups of everything, thankfully) and hope that the unit is capable of using the 4 x 4TB drives.
Or,
Bite the bullet and upgrade to a new NAS. The second option would probably take marginally less time as I could transfer from the existing ReadyNAS to the new one without having to mount all the backup drives (spread over several smaller drives).

Unless there is a neat way to switch out the drives from my existing unit to a new one?

Do the newer ReadyNAS have any similar expansion limits?
- dorsetweevil
  Aspirant
  Jan 20, 2020
  Another quick thought... I assume it would be OK to take out the new 4TB drive and replace the 2TB drive since I am not gaining any capacity? This was I have a spare 4TB for use elsewhere (or in the same unit after re-configuring).
- StephenB
  Guru - Experienced User
  Jan 20, 2020
  dorsetweevil wrote: Do the newer ReadyNAS have any similar expansion limits?
  
  Currently shipping ReadyNAS don't have these limits.
  
  dorsetweevil wrote:
  
  Bite the bullet and upgrade to a new NAS. The second option would probably take marginally less time as I could transfer from the existing ReadyNAS to the new one without having to mount all the backup drives (spread over several smaller drives).
  
  You could set up backup jobs in either NAS to migrate the data directly. So this would be quite a bit easier.
  
  dorsetweevil wrote:
  
  Unless there is a neat way to switch out the drives from my existing unit to a new one?
  
  No, there's no way to directly migrate. It is possible to temporarily mount the drives in a new NAS for offloading data - though that requires help from paid support, and would only make sense if your NV+ v2 wasn't working.
  
  dorsetweevil wrote:
  
  I assume it would be OK to take out the new 4TB drive and replace the 2TB drive since I am not gaining any capacity?
  
  I don't own the v2, and am not sure. But my guess is that you would end up with a degraded volume if you tried this. The RAID volume did expand, but the file system didn't - so it is basically stuck in the middle of the process.
  - dorsetweevil
    Aspirant
    Jan 21, 2020
    StephenB Many thanks for replying again. It would probably be best not to take out the new 4TB drive then; and I can see why if the volume is reporting as having completed the expanion... that's a shame as I was hoping that I could use this drive in a new NAS. I think this 8TB limit 'issue' is going to end up costing me alot of money :-(
    
    Right, now I need to justify to my wife the expense of a new NAS 'just to avoid having DVDs and Blurays lying around'! That's a discussion for a different forum!