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RN516 X-RAID Conversion RAID6 or RAID10?
I have a RN516 currently setup in default XRAID mode that was originally setup with all 2TB disks many years ago. All but one of those disks were upgraded last year to 4TB. In the next week, the last 2TB disk will be upgraded to 6TB. Within the next 2-3 years, I'll probably eventually convert all of the 4TB drives to 6TB or 8TB.
My understanding is that the default XRAID implementation will have essentially virtually partitioned each drive into 2TB segments due to the initial volume setup and that XRAID is currently essentially managing those segments in a RAID 5 configuration.
I'd like to eventually reconfigure to a minimum of RAID6, if not RAID10 - the choice partially depends on how much effort/resyncing/reconfiguration is required. Also, when the last 2TB disk is replaced, will the volume automatically continue to use the 2TB segment size indefinitely? Perhaps thats fine as my drive upgrades are usually in 2-4TB steps. No, I don't expect to ever have all the drives at the same capacity.
What do I need to know or keep in mind to convert the system to XRAID RAID6 or manual RAID10? How much effort or downtime would be involved? Short of resetting and reconfiguring the system from scratch, is there anything else I should be doing to get the best reliability and performance going forward?
The entire NAS is archived weekly to ReadyNAS Vault. Yes, that's more expensive than it should be...
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mattmarlowe wrote:
My understanding is that the default XRAID implementation will have essentially virtually partitioned each drive into 2TB segments due to the initial volume setup and that XRAID is currently essentially managing those segments in a RAID 5 configuration.
when the last 2TB disk is replaced, will the volume automatically continue to use the 2TB segment size indefinitely? Perhaps thats fine as my drive upgrades are usually in 2-4TB steps. No, I don't expect to ever have all the drives at the same capacity.
There's nothing virtual about it. Your 4 TB drives have two physical partitions that are both assembled into the data volume - the one carried over from the original 2 TB drive that is slightly less than 2 TB (since there is also an OS partition), and a second expansion partition that is 2 TB. These continue through the life of the volume.
If you upgraded two of those drives to 5 TB, then a third 1 TB physical partition would be added to them - XRAID does not limit the partitions to be of equal size.
mattmarlowe wrote:
What do I need to know or keep in mind to convert the system to XRAID RAID6 or manual RAID10? How much effort or downtime would be involved?
Both conversions require uninstalling your apps, destroying the existing volume, creating a new one, reinstalling your apps and restoring the data from backup.
Both RAID-6 and RAID-10 put additional limits on your disk sizes. With RAID-6 (xraid), the 4 biggest disks have to be of equal size. If you upgrade one or two disks, the extra space can't be used until you upgrade 4. I believe RAID-10 requires all the disks to be of equal size.
RAID-10 can't be expanded, so you'd need to start from scratch every time you want to increase storage.
mattmarlowe wrote:
is there anything else I should be doing to get the best reliability and performance going forward?
I recommend a UPS for all NAS, so there are clean shutdowns if there is power loss.
Netgear recommends keeping the overall free space at at least 20%. That is a bit conservative, but you likely will see performance issues if you fill the volume to 85% or more.
Run all the maintenance functions (disk test, balance, defrag, and disk scrub) on a schedule. I run each quarterly myself.
Be thoughtful about snapshots. They are useful, but some data usage patterns are well-suited to them - particularly folders with a lot of data "churn" For instance a torrent download folder, or a folder holding an SQL database. I use custom snapshots on most shares, limiting retention to 3 months.
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mattmarlowe wrote:
The entire NAS is archived weekly to ReadyNAS Vault. Yes, that's more expensive than it should be...
Maintaining a local backup too is a good idea (since restoring from the cloud will be fairly slow).
I'd look at other cloud storage providers - Vault pricing is out-of-line with the industry. Amazon Cloud storage is $60/year for unlimited storage. CrashPlan is also priced at $60/year.
- Actually, a RAID10 can be vertically expanded, if all the HDDs are upgraded (one by one). Instead of creating a secondary RAID array, the primary RAID array will be "extended". I have tested it (though I'm not going to post the same detailed info as I did on X-RAID).
That's the way Flex-Raid handles Vertical Expansion.
On a 516, both RAID6 and RAID10 must be created using Flex-RAID, which require disabling X-RAID and destroying the volume. You can follow StephenB advices.
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