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Chees! I'd like to reconfigure my RN104 with 4 brand new 4TB HDD (from WD). Preferable in RAID 1 and as one large volume. This should be possible, right? I have tried and tried but I could not find the right way...
Finally I gave up and instead tried to create two parallell RAID 1 volumes (2x4TB + 2x4TB HDD). But failed again. However, this secondary alternative could hopefully work when the resync process (of the first volume) is finnished (from what I have read in NetGear Community). Or do I understand wrong?
What am I doing wrong? I have really tried to follolw all the steps. Does anyone know how to create one large RAID 1 volume from 4x4TB HDD?
Volume size for each volume would be 4 TB, so 8 TB total. The NAS (like Windows) reports size in TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes), and 8 TB is the same as ~7.25 TiB.
A variant is to set up a single 2x8TB to start with, and add a second volume later on. Four 4 TB drives are about the same cost as two 8 TB, and with RAID-1 you get the same amount of storage. But you'd also have 2 free slots, so the first expansion wouldn't require replacing working disks.
With this approach, you'd create some shares on each volume. You'd see the full share list from Windows, and normally users wouldn't know (or care) which share is on which volume. As administrator, you would need to keep a reasonable amount of free space on both volumes. You sometimes could shift a share from one volume to the other to roughly balance free space.
Expansion of the two volumes could be done independently, and you would need to upgrade both disks in the volume to the larger size in order to expand.
One benefit of RAID-1 is that data recovery is fairly simple, since the data is mirrored on both disks. So each disk has a complete copy of the data.
That said, RAID is not enough to keep your data safe, so you should also put a backup plan in place for your data. Using one or more USB drives is a popular option.
If you choose this mode, just stick with the default X-RAID - it manages the RAID setup for you. With "classic" RAID-5, all the disks would need to upgraded to a larger size when it is time to expand. X-RAID supports unequal drive sizes, and would allow you to upgrade less expensively. Note X-RAID uses standard software RAID underneath, it is just a management package.
Size would be 12 TB (10.9 TiB) - the general capacity rule is "sum the disks and subtract the largest".
This approach gives you the most capacity possible with single redundancy (handling one disk failure with no data loss).
With X-RAID, the first expansion would require upgrading a pair of disks - for example, expanding to 2x8TB+2x4TB. Capacity would then grow to 16 TB. You could then upgrade a single disk later on (3x8TB+4TB), increasing capacity to 20 TB.
Data Recovery (if ever needed) would require at least three disks to be accessible at the same time, so it is more complicated than A). That said, if you put a good backup plan in place, you aren't likely to ever need data recovery. And no matter what approach you take, data recovery is expensive, and not always successful.
It should be possible to configure your RN104 with 4 brand new 4TB HDDs in RAID 1 and as one large volume. Here's a possible approach you can take:
Install all 4 hard drives into your RN104.
Log into the ReadyNAS web interface.
Go to "Volume" > "Create" > "X-RAID/RAID 1".
Select "Manual Setup" and click "Next".
Choose the 4 HDDs to be included in the RAID 1 volume.
In the "Volumes" tab, select the newly created volume and click "Edit".
Choose the "X-RAID/RAID 1" RAID type and select "Full Volume".
Click "Apply" to save the changes.
If you prefer to use two parallel RAID 1 volumes, then you should be able to create two separate RAID 1 volumes using 2x4TB HDDs each. Once the first volume has finished syncing, you can create the second volume using the remaining two HDDs.
Fantastic response! Thank you VERY much! For both your solid answers! I'll choose one of these two sollutions and try it out ASAP and re-post 🙂 Thanx again
Four drives in RAID1 will be the size of one drive with one primary and three mirrors. Is what you want RAID0? You can do that if you turn off XRAID and destroy any volume that already exists (or is in the process of being created), but it's a dangerous thing to do. A loss of one drive will cause you to lose all the data from all four.
If the data on it is fully backed up or consists only of backups, so it can all be recovered from another source, then you may want to go ahead and just deal with it if you have a drive failure. Otherwise, you are best off with RAID5 for maximum size with redundancy, which is the XRAID default, or four independent single-drive volumes if you don't need redundancy.
. Does anyone know how to create one large RAID 1 volume from 4x4TB HDD?
Why do you want that? It would give you a 4 TB volume size.
The default RAID-5 would give you 12 TB with RAID redundancy.
RAID-0 would give you 24 TB, but as @Sandshark says, is is not a good mode unless you are very well backed up. Any failures will result in losing all your data.
Aha. I didn't realize that. No, that is of coursce not what I want. Thank you (again)! I think I need to rethink entirely. What I need is simply a safe and reliable sollution, and my impression was that RAID 01 was a good combo beeing relatively safe eventhough a bit costsome. Also I figured it beeing kind of cromagnion easy and as such good for me (...)
With my focus set on RAID 1 i thought that it was inpractical with two parallell RAID 1 volumes (2x4TB + 2x4TB). I see now why creating one volume RAID 1 are totally nuts 🙂
Thanks! Yes slowly I start to understand 🙂 From my horizon and your input above I see two main alternatives.
RN104 and 4pcs 4TB HDD = A). Two parallel RAID 1 volumes 2x4TB + 2x4TB (= approx. 7,5TB?) or B). One RAID 5 volume 4x4TB (approx. 12 TB?)
If I'd try not to apply my Cro-Magnon theories both alternatives above should be quite safe and have OK performance, right? Any recommendations/advice besides the obvious difference regarding TB?
Please correct me and if someone prefer other RAID alternatives for my RN104 as above (my HDDs are still empty) please let me know.
This has shown to be a really generous and great forum! I'm not spoiled to that! Actually, you saved my day!
Volume size for each volume would be 4 TB, so 8 TB total. The NAS (like Windows) reports size in TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes), and 8 TB is the same as ~7.25 TiB.
A variant is to set up a single 2x8TB to start with, and add a second volume later on. Four 4 TB drives are about the same cost as two 8 TB, and with RAID-1 you get the same amount of storage. But you'd also have 2 free slots, so the first expansion wouldn't require replacing working disks.
With this approach, you'd create some shares on each volume. You'd see the full share list from Windows, and normally users wouldn't know (or care) which share is on which volume. As administrator, you would need to keep a reasonable amount of free space on both volumes. You sometimes could shift a share from one volume to the other to roughly balance free space.
Expansion of the two volumes could be done independently, and you would need to upgrade both disks in the volume to the larger size in order to expand.
One benefit of RAID-1 is that data recovery is fairly simple, since the data is mirrored on both disks. So each disk has a complete copy of the data.
That said, RAID is not enough to keep your data safe, so you should also put a backup plan in place for your data. Using one or more USB drives is a popular option.
If you choose this mode, just stick with the default X-RAID - it manages the RAID setup for you. With "classic" RAID-5, all the disks would need to upgraded to a larger size when it is time to expand. X-RAID supports unequal drive sizes, and would allow you to upgrade less expensively. Note X-RAID uses standard software RAID underneath, it is just a management package.
Size would be 12 TB (10.9 TiB) - the general capacity rule is "sum the disks and subtract the largest".
This approach gives you the most capacity possible with single redundancy (handling one disk failure with no data loss).
With X-RAID, the first expansion would require upgrading a pair of disks - for example, expanding to 2x8TB+2x4TB. Capacity would then grow to 16 TB. You could then upgrade a single disk later on (3x8TB+4TB), increasing capacity to 20 TB.
Data Recovery (if ever needed) would require at least three disks to be accessible at the same time, so it is more complicated than A). That said, if you put a good backup plan in place, you aren't likely to ever need data recovery. And no matter what approach you take, data recovery is expensive, and not always successful.
Thank you for your extensive answers! I choosed alternative B)
One RAID 5 volume 4x4TB X-RAID (Yes, I'll have to have also som secondary back up, hopefully in another physical space).
Resync in progress 🙂 Right now I can't really access the NAS-folders besides from the ReadyCLOUD interface. I guess it'll be different after resync / rebuild in a couple of days. Right now I have only some demo folders, until I feel confortable.
There are a few discussion threads on this already.
The best solution depends in part on what features of ReadyCloud you use.
Neither @Sandshark nor I have used ReadyCloud for quite a while. He uses ZeroTier (installed on the NAS), I use OpenVPN (built into my Orbi router).
My own use case is just remote access when I am away - generally using my laptop, but sometimes my iPhone or iPad. I am also often accessing home PCs when away. OpenVPN fits my situation very well.
Sandshark has a backup NAS installed at a remote location for disaster recovery (at a friend or family's home). So he also needs to connect the two NAS so the backup jobs can run. ZeroTier fits his situation better, as it lets him access just the remote NAS, without having to make changes to the remote router setup.
If you share files/folders with others remotely, than you might need more than a VPN. Not something I do though.
