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Forum Discussion
mwagonermpm
May 04, 2016Follower
XRAID turned RAID5 into RAID6 when adding a drive
When I added a drive, my RAID5 config changed to RAID6. Is it supposed to do that?
Danthem
May 04, 2016NETGEAR Employee
When you go past 6 disks xraid will turn your RAID5 to a RAID6
"X-RAID® dynamically changes raid RAID1 for 1 - 2 drives. RAID5 for 3 - 6 drives. RAID6 for 7+ drives"
You can try out different setups here:
StephenB
May 04, 2016Guru - Experienced User
Danthem wrote:
"X-RAID® dynamically changes raid RAID1 for 1 - 2 drives. RAID5 for 3 - 6 drives. RAID6 for 7+ drives"
I agree with the logic (though I wonder what would happen if that conversion required shrinking the volume size - which could be required if the drives aren't the same size).
But I think there should be a confirmation on the UI before the conversion happens.
- mdgm-ntgrMay 05, 2016NETGEAR Employee Retired
It's not sensible to use RAID-5 with that many disks.
The volume wouldn't be shrunk. Attempting to shrink a volume is dangerous.- StephenBMay 05, 2016Guru - Experienced User
mdgm wrote:
It's not sensible to use RAID-5 with that many disks.
I agree. But I still think a UI confirmation is a good idea. Once it converts, there's no going back. And a user who really needs the capacity might prefer to switch to flexraid, and set up a jbod volume instead.
mdgm wrote:
Attempting to shrink a volume is dangerous.
Understood. So what does happen if I have 2x6TB+4x4TB, and then I add a 6 TB drive to the array?
- Retired_MemberMay 05, 2016
StephenB wrote:
Understood. So what does happen if I have 2x6TB+4x4TB, and then I add a 6 TB drive to the array?You start with 2x6TB + 4x4TB in RAID5, so you have one RAID5 of 6 partitions of 4TB (equivalent to 5 capacity + 1 parity), and one RAID5 of 2 partitions of 2TB (equivalent to RAID1, 1 capacity + 1 parity).
When adding a 7th HDD of 6TB, you reshape the first RAID5 of 6 partitions of 4TB to a RAID6 of 7 partitions of 4TB (equivalent to 5 capacity + 2 parity, so same capacity), and reshape the second RAID5 of 2 partitions of 2TB to a RAID6 of 3 partitions of 2TB (equivalent to 1 capacity + 2 parity, so same capacity).
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