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Forum Discussion
Recommended Approach for upgrading drive
I have to replace a drive with some early smartctl errors, looking for advice on how to best proceed. I am going to be upgrading the size and also moving volumes round between a couple of drives that makes sense with the new drives.
This config is NOT using raid at all. I have the following configuration (which is backed up to another ReadyNas for redundancy).
slot1 = SSD with OS6 on it and not much else.
slot2 = volume1, smartctl errors started showing up 6TB
slot3 = (empty)
slot4 = volume2, no errors 10TB
So I bought 12TB drive which I intend to use for volume2 after I copy the data to it. I really would prefer to keep the same volume name for it, which is one of the questions I have.
After copying the contents from volume2 to the new drive, hopefully labeled as volume2 now, then format the 10TB drive and copy the contents from volume1 to it. Same as before I want the 10TB to have the same name as was being used before, "volume1"
Finally pull out the error drive and probably chuck it since its not trustworthy anymore due to smartctl errors.
Finally make sure they are in the slots the same way, volume1 in slot2, volume2 in slot4. Later on I might mirror one or both of those, but not now.
So question is how to proceed with this. I'd really prefer to do the copying inside the box to avoid lengthly restore from my other backup NAS. But I don't know how I can put in the new drive and use the same volume name, guess I can't. I'd have to be able to rename the existing volumes to something else in order to create the new volume with the same name as before and then copy it over, but I only found long and complicated post from SandShark about renaming a volume and basically decided not to try to do that.
Otherwise I could just pull the old volume out, put the new drive in, add it as a new volume with the same name as the one that was pulled out and then copy the data from my other backup NAS, but that will be much slower due to going over ethernet.
So I guess any suggestions anyone has for how I can shuffle these volumes to the new larger devices and pull out the smallest one with the errors, would be appreciated. Ideally keeping the same volume names for the end result as what I have been using until now.
17 Replies
So I guess any suggestions anyone has for how I can shuffle these volumes to the new larger devices and pull out the smallest one with the errors
An offline approach would be to
- power down the NAS and remove the drive(s)
- clone the existing drive to the larger one
- expand the third partition to use all the space on the larger drive
- resize the file system.
- insert the larger drives, and power up the NAS.
Thanks. Yea I'm just doing it from NAS backup, it will take a longer time, but it was just more straightforward. Simply need to DESTROY the old volumes, reinsert the new drives, create two new Flex raid jbod volumes the same way I did before and then restore from backup nas... first volume is in the process of being restored right now.
I did run into one other problem though, due to the file system filling up unexpectedly when I destroyed those two volumes, due to iDrive software which is installed in /opt and it freaked out and filled up the / volume for some stupid reason... anyway, it seems like maybe the DESTROY command did not complete properly on one of those old volumes, such that I'm now unable to create a volume by that same name now...
Could use some help to try to manually figure out what config file might not be synchronized with the change so that it will work properly to create a new volume, I'll post another post about it after I restore a bunch of stuff so far first.
I'm just doing it from NAS backup, it will take a longer time, but it was just more straightforward.
FWIW, that is what I do.
You cannot have two volumes of the same name nor is it easy to change a volume name (see Changing-the-volume-name-on-an-os6-based-nas if you really want to do it). To get what you want, you'll need to use your backup to restore volume contents after you DESTROY and then replace each or an intermediary drive/volume. Since using an intermediary drive entails two copy operations, NAS-to-NAS copy from the backup may not be a lot slower.
To use an intermediary drive:
Add Volume3 in the empty slot.
Copy contents of Volume2 to Volume 3.
DESTROY Volume2.
Add new Volume2.
Copy contents from Volume3 to Volume2.
Delete contents of Volume 3.
Copy contents of Volume` to Volume 3.
DESTROY Volume`.
Add new Volume1.
Copy contents from Volume3 to Volume1.
You could use an external drive as intermediary instead, but it will take more time. Restore from backup is probably at least as fast.
If the drive in slot 1 isn't the primary volume (contains home folders and apps), then there is more to do. See How-to-save-your-apps-when-destroying-your-main-volume-OS6. If that volume was the first drive you put in, it should be primary. Otherwise, one of the others is. This extra step is needed if you use home folders or have apps installed, regardless of the method used to copy the volume contents.
FYI, the SSD with the OS is probably doing less than you think. The OS is in RAID1 on all drives, so having one with the OS only doesn't speed up OS access. It will speed up home folder access and app access if it's the primary drive.
So I hope you are the one that can help me figure this out. When I issued DESTROY command on those two data volumes, a running IDrive deamon freaked out and started filling up my / partition really fast for some reason (that I will look more into later). IDrive command line tools is installed by default in /opt. This froze up some functionality with / full.
But the worst part is that I think one of the volume destroy's did not complete its task completely due to the / filesystem filling up halfway through or something, because now when I try to create a new volume with that name, it complains and issues error. I don't know if there is something in the OS configuration somewhere that needs to be completely reset manually to overcome this, or if the actual new drive I'm trying to use was only halfway blessed and needs to be completely wiped in some way to start over or what, but I am hoping you are the one that would know the details of how I can fix this, hopefully not requiring me to factory reset......
But the worst part is that I think one of the volume destroy's did not complete its task completely
What happens if you boot up the system with the original drive in place?
also since DESTROYING those two non-OS JBOD volumes, now suddenly I see from command line that my / partition is reporting 0 free... which doens't make sense, but that must be why I'm generally having problems, so I'll try to track that down.
also for clarity, I am not using X-Raid, using flex-raid... All volumes were created as JBOD.
I have already DESTROYED the other two volumes in preparation to restore to new devices.
However now getting a weird error, I have rebooted it several times to flush everything out, but now when I try to use front view it is prompting me dozens of times and forever for admin login and password, its not remembering it for any length of time, I have tried several different web browsers same result. Any idea what might be suddenly causing that?
I'm wondering if something in the OS was using some space on one of the other volumes I have DESTROY'd. Not sure why it would be, but that's the only thing I changed, destroyed both volumes, there is only one drive in the readynas now, the OS drive...and it SHOULD be functioning fine...but its becoming unwieldy to have to re-enter the admin login and password over and over again.
Also when I tried to then insert one of the new drives and add a flex-raid JBOD volume, its coming back with an error about can't find device or something like that.
So... somehow destroying the two non-OS JBOD volumes seems to have broken my OS functionality.
but its becoming unwieldy to have to re-enter the admin login and password over and over again.
If the password hasn't changed, then this must be a browser issue.
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