Hi, I would appreciate some help from more experience Readynas users. After some terrible experience I had with the official Netgear support, I will try here, perhaps with more luck.
I run a Readynas Duo with the 4.1.6 Radiator and one old 1.5TB Seagate HDD in the first slot. It has a lot of data and it's working fine. Now I need to add a WD20EARX disk (from the HCL) to the second slot and want the system to mirror the data. I am aware that I will only be able to use 1.5TB from the WD drive. I may want to expand the array later by replacing the old Seagate drive with another 2TB drive. Not right now though.
The question is, what exactly is the correct procedure?
I tried just using the WD20EARX drive right away in the second slot but the system pronounced the disk dead after the first boot. Knowing that it's a lie (the disk was thoroughly tested before this) I did some reading and if I understand it correctly, I need a newer Radiator (with 4k sectors support) for the drive to work. I didn't update it until today cause there were bugs in the newer versions that were problematic for me. Now I have no other choice. The usual advice in similar cases seems to be:
-backup data -backup setting -update Radiator -factory default -restore data -restore settings
That would take some HUGE amount of time to do with all the data. Can I leave out the step with factory default (thus wiping the data) when I don't even have the WD20EARX connected at this point yet? I can add the new drive afterwards when the Radiator upgrade is completed. Will it work alright? Or is there other reason for factory default when upgrading Radiator?
I would be grateful for an early answer. I hope I explained it clearly enough.
After updating the firmware to 4.1.7 (or later) you will need to do a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything) to get 4k sector partition alignment. Now you can do this before or after adding the 2TB disk but you will have to do it.
Be sure to use disks on the compatibility list for your Duo v1
Ok, that's bad news. It will take two days at least to do that. Probably more with all that syncing afterwards. 😞 The disk is on the HCL without any notes at all. If there was at least noted that I need 4.1.7 or newer and the transition includes data wipe, I might have chosen a different approach completely. Now it's too late.
Would you know, how are the files/folders access rights handled during this process? I have several users with different access rights and would like to keep that. Will just copying data back and restoring configuration preserve these rights?
Last question: I'm kind of unclear on whether I can use the latest Radiator upgrade (4.1.10) directly or do I need to do the previous upgrades one by one? In short, does 4.1.10 contain all previous upgrades?
And thanks a lot, mdgm, for a quick response. I really appreciate that.
