Considering upgrade to ReadyNas Pro 6 from NVX using RaidX2

[mnrcotton]

Hi - need to upgrade to a Pro 6 from a NVX with 4 Seagate 2TB ES drives in RaidX2 - will I be able to just put the 4 drives in the first 4 bays and carry on, adding other drives to expand the volume - I have no other place to put the data in the meantime, which makes it a little difficult otherwise i would simply start over.

[mdgm-ntgr]

mnrcotton wrote:
Hi - need to upgrade to a Pro 6 from a NVX with 4 Seagate 2TB ES drives in RaidX2 - will I be able to just put the 4 drives in the first 4 bays and carry on, adding other drives to expand the volume

Yes. However I'd recommend you purchase new drives for the Pro 6, transfer the data across your network and use your NVX as a backup.

Also note that the NVX is a 32-bit NAS and the Pro 6 is 64-bit.

mnrcotton wrote:
- I have no other place to put the data in the meantime, which makes it a little difficult otherwise i would simply start over.

If you keep the NVX to use as a backup you can do a clean install on the new NAS.

If you intend on migrating your disks across the instructions are in the FAQ (http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_migrate_disks_over_from_an_existing_readynas_to_another)

To help provide some additional advice tailored to your situation to help make the migration process go smoothly could you answer a few questions?:

1. If you download your logs (Status > Logs > Download all logs) and extract the zip contents what are the contents of initrd.log?
2. If you download your logs, what are the contents of partition.log?

[mnrcotton]

I really wanted to move the disks from one to another in their current state - i have other plans for the NVX, but not the funds just yet - so do you think this will work or is the 32/64 bit issue gonna cause me problems

[mdgm-ntgr]

The migration would work fine. Still it would be nice if you could answer the 2 questions I gave in my post above.

[mnrcotton]

intirid log:- [2011/02/17 23:08:58] Factory default initiated due to new disks (no RAID, no partitions)!
[2011/02/17 23:14:21] Updated from RAIDiator to 4.2.15.
[2011/05/08 20:28:44] Updated from RAIDiator 4.2.15 to 4.2.17.
[2011/07/26 01:00:54] Updated from RAIDiator 4.2.17 to 4.2.18.

Partition Log:- ***** partition output for sdd *****

Disk /dev/sdd: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 025A1962-6646-4059-AE69-7057FA445E72
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029134
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries
Total free space is 5108 sectors (2.5 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 64 8388671 4.0 GiB FD00 Linux RAID
2 8388672 9437247 512.0 MiB FD00 Linux RAID
5 9437256 3907024064 1.8 TiB FD00 Linux RAID

Disk /dev/sdd: 243201 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8257536 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 0+ 242251- 242252- 1953514583+ ee EFI GPT
/dev/sdd2 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdd3 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdd4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty

[mdgm-ntgr]

That looks good.

I would suggest you do the following before migrating your disks across.

Put a single spare disk (not from your array) in the Pro 6. Do a factory reset (http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu). Update the firmware on the Pro 6 to at least 4.2.16, preferably to the same version that's running on the NVX. Then power down and remove your spare disk and put it aside. Migrate your disks as per the FAQ (linked to in earlier post in the thread).

Then after verifying a successful migration if you wish to add the spare disk to your array, hot-add it (add while NAS is on). It will be wiped and added to your array.