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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer drives not adding (RNDP600E)
Hello, with a repetitive problem:
Healthy array with 4 each WD181KFGX in RAID 5, FW 6.9.6
Wishing to add 2 each WD161KFGX but it doesn't automatically expand, and the expand button is grayed out. These drives successfully passed WDC's Dashboard extended SMART check.
Logs downloaded, but I'm unsure what to check.
See screen capture, thank you! - Ralph
3 Replies
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reburns wrote:
Healthy array with 4 each WD181KFGX in RAID 5, FW 6.9.6
Wishing to add 2 each WD161KFGX but it doesn't automatically expand, and the expand button is grayed out.
In most cases, you can't add a smaller disk to the array (unless you previously had 16 TB drives installed). The reason is that doing this requires that the existing disks in the array be repartitioned.
If you are ok with starting over, you could destroy the volume, create a new one, and then recreate shares, and restore data from backup. That will give you the full volume size (86 TB). Easiest to go with X-RAID, though you could switch to FlexRAID after the volume is created and synced.
You could instead use "add group", and concatenate a 2x16 TB RAID-1 group to your existing volume - though you would only gain 16 TB of volume space (70 TB). Alternative, just create a new RAID-1 volume.
Or of course exchange the two WD161KFGX drives for WD181KFGX.
StephenB - Thank you!
At this time, I am considering volume rebuilds versus purchasing new drives. What RAID format would you suggest for me? I value (1) reliability, (2) the possibility of adding drives later and (3) maximizing storage space. I am a very simple user, and don’t even know how to retrieve snapshots!
Would that be X-RAID?
My current configuration is:
Pro Pioneer, RAID 5:
Channel 1: 18TB, WD181KFGX
Channel 2: 18TB, WD181KFGX
Channel 3: 18TB, WD181KFGX
Channel 4: 18TB, WD181KFGX
Channel 5: Empty
Channel 6: Empty
Waiting to be used in the Pioneer?
2 each 16TB WD161KFGX
RN316, RAID 5:
Channel 1: 16TB, WD161KFGX
Channel 2: 16TB, WD161KFGX
Channel 3: 16TB, WD161KFGX
Channel 4: 14TB, WD141KFGX
Channel 5: 6TB, WD60EFRX
Channel 6: 6TB, WD60EFRX
Waiting to be used in the RN316?
2 each 14TB WD141KFGX
I reckon that it’s better to have even numbers of both 16TB and 14TB in the RN316, but I’ll just use what I already own, 3 + 3, oh well. And then the two 6TB’s can be used for offsite backup.
Thanks much, Ralph
Unless you at one time had a 16TB drive in the Pro, you cannot add the 16TB except as a separate volume except in special circumstances. To create a separate volume will require you turn off XRAID. The only way to make them all part of a single volume it to destroy it and re-create with XRAID on and at least one of the 16TB in at the time.
XRAID is the best way to make full use of drives of different sizes. But even it has rules, and one is that you cannot add a drive smaller that those in the existing volume. There is actually an exception to that, if you had a drive of a smaller or the same size in the array previously. If the previous drive was smaller, then only part of the new drive will be used -- equal in size to that previous drive.
The only reasons I can think of that one would choose to turn XRAID off is to have multiple volumes or to have a different level of redundancy than XRAID uses (RAID6 or RAID10).
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