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RNDU6000 Disk Upgrade
I have a ReadyNAS RND6000 using RaidAir 4.2.13 which up until recently comprised of 6 x 2 TB HDD. It is configured using X-RAID2 with a single volume. All has been working fine, however I recent...
geodav1952 wrote:
I have a ReadyNAS RND6000 using RaidAir 4.2.13 which up until recently comprised of 6 x 2 TB HDD. It is configured using X-RAID2 with a single volume. All has been working fine, however I recently replaced one of the HDD with a Western Digital WD40EFRX 4 TB ... it only shows 1858 GB as being allocated which is the same as the other 5 x 2 GB HDD. (ie per below)
Do you mean Raidiator 4.2.31? If you are still running 4.2.13, then you should update the firmware to 4.2.31 (which is the final firmware for OS 4.2).
The capacity rule for single redundancy XRAID is "sum the disks and subtract the largest". That means that you need to upgrade at least two drives to increase your space. It's not possible to maintain RAID redundancy unless the two biggest drives are the same size.
Also with OS 4.2, there are two limits to expansion that aren't well documented.
- A volume can't expand over 16 TiB.
- A volume can't expand more than 8 TiB from it's starting size.
You aren't at the first limit, but it is possible that you are at the second. If you initially installed one 2 TB drive, then your starting size would have been 2 TB, and your growth so far be 8 TB. But if you initially installed all 6 drives, then your starting size is 10 TB - so only the first limit would apply to your system (because you'd reach it before you hit the second limit).
If you initially installed 2x6TB (starting size 10 TB), then if you upgrade a second drive your volume will expand by 2 TB to 12 TB. The NAS reports TiB, not TB, so it would show a ~10.9 TiB size. You could upgrade two more disks (4x4TB+2x2TB) without reaching the 16 TiB ceiling. If you tried to upgrade to 5x4TB+1x2TB, you'd exceed the 16 TiB ceiling, and the expansion would fail.
When you do upgrade the second disk, the system will first resync the existing volume. When that completes, the system will need to reboot before expands the volume. Often that reboot needs to be done manually. That reboot won't be needed when you upgrade a third disk or fourth disk.
But if you initially installed 1x2TB (starting size 2 TB), you'd need to back up your data, do a factory reset with all drives in place, and then restore the data from backup in order to be able to expand to 4x4TB+2x2TB.
A variant is to convert your NAS to OS 6 as part of the factory reset - it doesn't have either of the two expansion limits described above.
geodav1952 wrote:
I have a ReadyNAS RND6000 using RaidAir 4.2.13 which up until recently comprised of 6 x 2 TB HDD. It is configured using X-RAID2 with a single volume. All has been working fine, however I recently replaced one of the HDD with a Western Digital WD40EFRX 4 TB ... it only shows 1858 GB as being allocated which is the same as the other 5 x 2 GB HDD. (ie per below)
Do you mean Raidiator 4.2.31? If you are still running 4.2.13, then you should update the firmware to 4.2.31 (which is the final firmware for OS 4.2).
The capacity rule for single redundancy XRAID is "sum the disks and subtract the largest". That means that you need to upgrade at least two drives to increase your space. It's not possible to maintain RAID redundancy unless the two biggest drives are the same size.
Also with OS 4.2, there are two limits to expansion that aren't well documented.
- A volume can't expand over 16 TiB.
- A volume can't expand more than 8 TiB from it's starting size.
You aren't at the first limit, but it is possible that you are at the second. If you initially installed one 2 TB drive, then your starting size would have been 2 TB, and your growth so far be 8 TB. But if you initially installed all 6 drives, then your starting size is 10 TB - so only the first limit would apply to your system (because you'd reach it before you hit the second limit).
If you initially installed 2x6TB (starting size 10 TB), then if you upgrade a second drive your volume will expand by 2 TB to 12 TB. The NAS reports TiB, not TB, so it would show a ~10.9 TiB size. You could upgrade two more disks (4x4TB+2x2TB) without reaching the 16 TiB ceiling. If you tried to upgrade to 5x4TB+1x2TB, you'd exceed the 16 TiB ceiling, and the expansion would fail.
When you do upgrade the second disk, the system will first resync the existing volume. When that completes, the system will need to reboot before expands the volume. Often that reboot needs to be done manually. That reboot won't be needed when you upgrade a third disk or fourth disk.
But if you initially installed 1x2TB (starting size 2 TB), you'd need to back up your data, do a factory reset with all drives in place, and then restore the data from backup in order to be able to expand to 4x4TB+2x2TB.
A variant is to convert your NAS to OS 6 as part of the factory reset - it doesn't have either of the two expansion limits described above.
Thanks Paul, you have certainly given me a wealth of inofrmation that does seem to documented elsewhere and if it is, it is hard to find. In regards to Raidiator, I am at Ver 4.2.31 - a typo on my behalf!! Fortunately, when I initially put my system together some years back I went all the way and set it up with 6 x 2 TB HDD so I can, if I understand correctly what you have said, upgrade another 3 x 2 TB HDD to 4 x TB HDD. To that end I will now swap a second 2 TB for a 4 TB drive which I have at hand but was holoding off on doing until I better understood the situatiion which you have explained very well. Thanks again and I will post the outcome in the next day or so.
Hi Paul, further to my last, my ReadyNAS is in the process of syncing the 2nd 4 TB HDD and will likely take till tomorrow to finish, however, I am intersted in the propect of upgrading to OS 6 as you mentioned earlier, a course of action that I did not realize was possible with this system. This will not be a hasty process as I first need to back up all of the data that I have on the system which is a task in itself, however, before I venture down this track can you offer advice on the advantages of using OS 6 over my current setup as I would need to weigh up the pros and cons - ie it may be best just to let sleeping dogs lie. Also, are you able to point me towards any available documentation on the upgarde process. Thanks in advance.
Hello Stephen, you probably wonder who in earth is Paul. My apologies but I am dealing with mutiple issues concurrently (bad move) and simply used the wrong name for the wrong issue. You probaly don't want to sell me some replacement seals for my refrigerator as is the case with Paul!!. Now that I have explained that Stephen, I do sincerely thank-you for your assistance.
geodav1952 wrote:
however, before I venture down this track can you offer advice on the advantages of using OS 6 over my current setup as I would need to weigh up the pros and cons - ie it may be best just to let sleeping dogs lie.
FWIW, my own Pro-6 is still running 4.2.31. It is at the expansion limit, so I will convert it when I need to expand it again. I use it as a backup NAS, and my primary NAS is already OS-6 so there is no urgency.
So another avenue you could look at is to get a new shipping OS-6 NAS with new disks, and simply repurpose your Pro-6 as a backup NAS (leaving it at 4.2.31). The backup jobs are compatible, so you can schedule automatic incremental backups of your files. This is of course more expensive, but it would give you a new platform (your Pro-6 has to be at least 6 years old).
Some of the pluses first:
- Support for SMB 3. Microsoft and Apple are both phasing out the SMB 1 protocol that is used in the Pro. IMO this is the biggest plus.
- No known expansion limits for volume size
- Newer version of linux that is up-to-date on security fixes.
- reasonably frequent firmware updates, since OS-6 is the going-forward platform.
- Antivirus service (I don't use it, but it is a good thing if you allow others to upload files to your NAS).
- Built in file indexing/file search
- Plex app available (alternative to DLNA, worth looking at if you have a video library on the NAS).
- ReadyCloud (Not something I use, but some have done the conversion so they can use it).
- BTRFS file system. While there are some disadvantages to BTRFS too, in my opinion it is a plus. BTRFS has a snapshot feature which can be used to roll back to older versions of files/folders. It is quite efficient as far as on-disk space goes.
- More modern and cleaner web ui.
The minuses:
- Netgear won't provide paid support for systems that have been converted.
- Though the conversion works well for nearly everyone, there are a few people who have run into trouble, and one or two who bricked their NAS. So there is some small risk.
- Although so far new firmware releases have worked well on the Pro-6, there is no guarantee that will continue forever (since as far as Netgear is concerned it is an unsupported configuration). Possible areas that could be problematic are correct setup for the temperature sensors and fan control (which are platform specific).
The process needed is:
- BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
- (optional) Update your BIOS to the latest version by installing this addon: BIOS_Update_Package_0.5-x86.bin
- Download PREPR4TOR6_0.1-x86.bin and install it as an add-on. Do not reboot afterwards
- Download R4toR6_6.9.5.bin and install it as a firmware update
- Reboot, it will update the firmware and start a factory default.
- After the default, log into the web ui (the default password is password) and update the firmware. After you recreate your shares, restore the data from your backup.
Note that currently shipping OS-6 NAS all have at least 2 GB of RAM, and the stock Pro-6 has only 1 GB. So you might consider increasing the RAM in the Pro-6 as part of the project. You can do that at any point (before conversion, or afterwards).
Thanks Stephen, you have given me a lot to think about. Having said that I have a more immediate issue in that, whilst the syncing of the 2nd 4 TB HDD seems to have worked fine, (to that end both of the new 4 TB disks have 3271 GB allocated) the expansion of available space has failed. I have rebooted several times, but nothing has changed, and on each occasion the device reports that an incomplete file system expansion was detected and that the process is resuming immediately followed by a second message stating that the volume expansion failed. I have downloaded my log files as of today and inserted the ones that I feel may be relevant (ie Volume file, System Log from last Reboot forward, Status - Old file from point of exchanging HDD forward, Partition File, Expansion File from swapping of 1st Disk Swap-over) into a pdf.
If you are able to assist further with this matter it will be greatly appreciated – thanks.
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