ReadyNAS 4200 v1Firmware 4.2.25Configuration: X-RAID2Existing 12 1 TB WD enterprise hard drives (on the compatibility list)Drives were replaced one at a time, allowing for full rescync to complete between each one.Currently 12 2 TB WD enterprise hard drives (on the compatiblity list)After each new drive finished syncing, I recieved the expect message "Found space that can be used to expand capacity, expansion process will start during next boot." Saturday morning I rebooted and received this: "Continuing with volume expansion or migration. Do not interrupt the system during this time. When complete, email notification will be sent to the alert contact list." That was immediantly followed by this: "Volume expansion failed." I rebooted 2 more times, one time even running a volume chech, and same messages.There are 11 shares of which 10 are normal shares and one is configured as a virtual drive on 2 ESXi hosts.Any one have any recommendations or ideas of what I need to do to get it to expand to the new free space? Without doing a factory reset!

There is an 8 TiB growth limit over the life of the volume. If your starting point was 12 x 1TB you would have reached that ceiling during your upgrade.Also you cannot expand a volume past 16 TiB, no matter what the starting point was. At that point the inodes need to be converted to 64 bits, and the expansion tools do not do that safely. Your new configuration exceeds 16 TiB also.So although you do not want to hear it, a factory reset is what is needed.

The 8TB expansion limit would have nothing to do with this, as from my research that would just cap what expansion is, in this case the expanded amount would be 8TB rather than 9TB which we can live with.As for the 64 bit deal, are you saying BECAUSE the expanded size would exceed 16TB that it will not even START the expand and stop at 16TB?How do you do an off-line expansion and will that work?

My understanding is that if your newly installed disk would expand over 16 TiB that the scripts simply won't expand. And off-line expansion won't work reliably, since the tools on the NAS are not 64-bit safe.Here's a link to a post describing the process: https://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopi ... 12#p353102Note the warning from Beisser and Chirpa not to use that method to expand over the 16 TiB boundary.That is your current volume size, and how many 2 TB drives did you install before setting the error? Are you running dual-redundancy?

I installed ALL of the drives (one at a time) before attempting to reboot. Yes, the configuraiton is X-RAID2 which is dual-redundancy.

jst3751 wrote:I installed ALL of the drives (one at a time) before attempting to reboot.Ok. Generally I reboot after each. That might have gotten you farther.jst3751 wrote:Yes, the configuraiton is X-RAID2 which is dual-redundancy.Well, no. X-RAID2 added support for mixed disk sizes (for instance 6x1TB+6x2TB) in the same volume to X-RAID. X-RAID2 can be either single or dual redundancy.

Volume expansion failed | NETGEAR Communities

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StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 24, 2014
There is an 8 TiB growth limit over the life of the volume. If your starting point was 12 x 1TB you would have reached that ceiling during your upgrade.

Also you cannot expand a volume past 16 TiB, no matter what the starting point was. At that point the inodes need to be converted to 64 bits, and the expansion tools do not do that safely. Your new configuration exceeds 16 TiB also.

So although you do not want to hear it, a factory reset is what is needed.
jst3751
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2014
The 8TB expansion limit would have nothing to do with this, as from my research that would just cap what expansion is, in this case the expanded amount would be 8TB rather than 9TB which we can live with.

As for the 64 bit deal, are you saying BECAUSE the expanded size would exceed 16TB that it will not even START the expand and stop at 16TB?

How do you do an off-line expansion and will that work?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 24, 2014
My understanding is that if your newly installed disk would expand over 16 TiB that the scripts simply won't expand. And off-line expansion won't work reliably, since the tools on the NAS are not 64-bit safe.

Here's a link to a post describing the process: https://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopi ... 12#p353102
Note the warning from Beisser and Chirpa not to use that method to expand over the 16 TiB boundary.

That is your current volume size, and how many 2 TB drives did you install before setting the error? Are you running dual-redundancy?
jst3751
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2014
I installed ALL of the drives (one at a time) before attempting to reboot. Yes, the configuraiton is X-RAID2 which is dual-redundancy.
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 24, 2014
jst3751 wrote:
I installed ALL of the drives (one at a time) before attempting to reboot.
Ok. Generally I reboot after each. That might have gotten you farther.

jst3751 wrote:
Yes, the configuraiton is X-RAID2 which is dual-redundancy.
Well, no. X-RAID2 added support for mixed disk sizes (for instance 6x1TB+6x2TB) in the same volume to X-RAID.

X-RAID2 can be either single or dual redundancy.
jst3751
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2014
If I do a factory reset will I end up with 16TB or 18TB?
jst3751
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2014
From the Web Admin: Configuration: RAID Level X-RAID2, 12 disks (with dual redundancy)
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 24, 2014
If you do a factory reset with 12x2TB you'd end up with 20 TB (~18 TiB). with xraid-2 dual redundancy.

If you go down that path you should consider flexraid. Then you would have some other expansion choices in the future (for instance, upgrading 4 drives to 4 TB, and creating a second volume with the extra 8 TB).
jst3751
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2014
Is it possible to do an off-line expansion and NOT cross the 16TB limit for 32 bit? Or is the off-line expansion all or none?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Mar 24, 2014
Not sure.