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Forum Discussion
Upgrading from 2TB to 3TB drives
Hello everybody,
great to see such an active community has formed around the ReadyNAS! I've been a proud and satisfied user of a Ultra 6 for a few months. I'm currently having three Samsung 2TB drives installed and I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I'm already close to using maximum capacity. So, I'm looking at expansion. Since the 3TB drives cost approx the same much as the 2TB drives (per megabyte of course), I kinda want to install a 3TB drive. First for expansion, and later I'll want to replace my 2TB drives with 3TBs. But anyway, first, the expansion. Here are my questions.
1. In the new situation, I'll have 3 x 2TB and 1 x 3TB. If I have understood correctly, the new drive will be limited to 2TB. That is fine for now, but it does raise the first question. If I install the new 3TB drive and the ReadyNAS will only allocate/use/see 2TB, what will happen once I replaced all the 2TB drives with 3TBs? Will the first 3TB drive then be recognized as 3TB automatically?
2a. My plan is to add the 3TB drive, but another option would be to remove one of the three 2TB drives and replace it with the new 3TB. Does this have any advantage or disadvantage compared to plan A? I have X-RAID2 which means I could just remove one of the three drives and replace it with another, without losing any data, right?
2b. If the second option (replacing iso adding) is better, would it matter to replace the first or the third drive? Or doesn't that matter at all?
2c. Again, if the second option is best, should I
-shut down the NAS
-remove one drive
-add the new drive
-boot
-let the system resync
or,
-shut down
-remove one drive
-boot
-resync
-shut down
-add new drive
-boot
-resync
Thanks in advance for your answers!
Regards,
Ruud
great to see such an active community has formed around the ReadyNAS! I've been a proud and satisfied user of a Ultra 6 for a few months. I'm currently having three Samsung 2TB drives installed and I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I'm already close to using maximum capacity. So, I'm looking at expansion. Since the 3TB drives cost approx the same much as the 2TB drives (per megabyte of course), I kinda want to install a 3TB drive. First for expansion, and later I'll want to replace my 2TB drives with 3TBs. But anyway, first, the expansion. Here are my questions.
1. In the new situation, I'll have 3 x 2TB and 1 x 3TB. If I have understood correctly, the new drive will be limited to 2TB. That is fine for now, but it does raise the first question. If I install the new 3TB drive and the ReadyNAS will only allocate/use/see 2TB, what will happen once I replaced all the 2TB drives with 3TBs? Will the first 3TB drive then be recognized as 3TB automatically?
2a. My plan is to add the 3TB drive, but another option would be to remove one of the three 2TB drives and replace it with the new 3TB. Does this have any advantage or disadvantage compared to plan A? I have X-RAID2 which means I could just remove one of the three drives and replace it with another, without losing any data, right?
2b. If the second option (replacing iso adding) is better, would it matter to replace the first or the third drive? Or doesn't that matter at all?
2c. Again, if the second option is best, should I
-shut down the NAS
-remove one drive
-add the new drive
-boot
-let the system resync
or,
-shut down
-remove one drive
-boot
-resync
-shut down
-add new drive
-boot
-resync
Thanks in advance for your answers!
Regards,
Ruud
5 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
ruudpel wrote: Hello everybody,
great to see such an active community has formed around the ReadyNAS! I've been a proud and satisfied user of a Ultra 6 for a few months. I'm currently having three Samsung 2TB drives installed and I'm kinda ashamed to admit that I'm already close to using maximum capacity. So, I'm looking at expansion. Since the 3TB drives cost approx the same much as the 2TB drives (per megabyte of course), I kinda want to install a 3TB drive. First for expansion, and later I'll want to replace my 2TB drives with 3TBs.
You'll need to make sure you've updated at least to 4.2.16 before adding the 3TB disks. You can update the firmware via System > Update > Remote.ruudpel wrote:
1. In the new situation, I'll have 3 x 2TB and 1 x 3TB. If I have understood correctly, the new drive will be limited to 2TB.
Yes. X-RAID2 will only expand when redundant space can be added. Add a second 3TB disk and then the full 3TB will be used.ruudpel wrote:
That is fine for now, but it does raise the first question. If I install the new 3TB drive and the ReadyNAS will only allocate/use/see 2TB, what will happen once I replaced all the 2TB drives with 3TBs? Will the first 3TB drive then be recognized as 3TB automatically?
Once you've added a second 3TB drive (assuming you stick with single-redundancy) the full 3TB will be able to be used. Of course one of the 3TB disks will be the redundancy overhead. Take a look at X-RAID2 in Actionruudpel wrote:
2a. My plan is to add the 3TB drive, but another option would be to remove one of the three 2TB drives and replace it with the new 3TB. Does this have any advantage or disadvantage compared to plan A? I have X-RAID2 which means I could just remove one of the three drives and replace it with another, without losing any data, right?
Replacing a 2TB drive would give you less volume capacity but would mean more drive bays were free.ruudpel wrote:
2b. If the second option (replacing iso adding) is better, would it matter to replace the first or the third drive? Or doesn't that matter at all?
Doesn't matter except that if a disk is failing or dead you should obviously replace that one.ruudpel wrote:
2c. Again, if the second option is best, should I
Your ReadyNAS supports hot-swap so you can remove the disk while the NAS is on and add the replacement also while the NAS is on.
Personally though I'd add the disk to the empty drive bay.
I'd suggest considering converting to dual-redundancy (http://support.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19044/~/converting-and-xraid2-system-to-dual-redundancy), but that would mean you'd need 4x3TB disks before you could utilise the full capacity of those disks.- ruudpel - about six or seven months ago I faced a similar situation with 4x1TB drives in my NVX. Rather than go with 2TB drives, I also went went replacing 2 of the 1TB drives with 3TB drives. Before the upgrade, I had a net volume of 2.7TB. I actually did this on two NVX units, since one backs up to the second. I did the backup first. I replaced drive 1 first (just my choice, it really doesn't matter) and after the resync I then replaced the drive in bay 2. After the resync the volume showed it was fully redundant, but still at 2.7TB. It does take a reboot to trigger the vertical expansion.
After the reboot, my redundant volume was now 4.5TB. The only difference on my primary NAS was that it took two reboots before the vertical expansion took place, so be ready to reboot several times.
Dual redundancy does offer greater protection, not an option for me, but you do have to have 4 of the larger drives for the array to be dual redundant. Your best path may be to add a 3TB to gain the 2TB of additonal space. Then add a second 3TB to gain 3TB additonal space. At this point you may want to replace one of the 2TB with a 3TB drive. This will give you 2x2TB and 3x3TB. This would give you a volume of about 9TB. Then if you desire, you can add a fourth 3TB and at the same time convert to dual redundancy. Your volume would still stay at 9TB (net), but would be protected against the failure of two drives. - mdgm & Papa,
thank you very much for your replies. I have a few follow-up questions though.
Regarding question 1. It is obvious and clear that the first 3TB drive I install, will be recognized or allocated as an 2TB drive. That is fine for the time being, but what is not clear yet, is this. Once the last (third) 2TB drive is gone and replaced, will the FIRST 3TB drive (the one 'capped' to 2TB') be automatically recognized as a 3TB drive? Is the NAS intelligent enough to recognize hey, there are only 3 TB drives in the NAS now, I will use them fully? Or will it use only 2 TB of the first 3TB drive, and recognize the last two 3TB drives fully?
And secondly..just to be entirely sure..about 90% of my current capacity is used. I can still safely remove one disc and replace it (if I decide to replace iso expand) with an empy disc right? No data will be lost? I think I know the answer to that one, but better be safe than sorry ;-)
Thanks again,
Ruud - With single redundancy x-raid2, once you install the second 3 TB drive, the existing 3 TB drive should be expanded. (It doesn't matter if the 3 TB replaces an existing 2 TB, or is added to an empty slot).
- Correct with single-redundancy once you've added 2x3TB drives they'll both be treated as 3TB drives. Or with dual-redundancy once you've added 4x3TB drives they'll be treated as such. If all drive bays are full with disks of one capacity you don't have to replace all disks to get expansion. Just two with single-redundancy or four with dual-redundancy.
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