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Since you have configured the 3 HDDs you have to RAID-0 then for you to be able to use X-RAID you will have to destroy the volume or do a factory reset and start from scratch.
You will have to backup all your data first, then turn off your NAS and replace/insert the new drives (2x6TB, 2x2TB). You can then perform a Factory reset from the Boot Menu.
Since you have configured the 3 HDDs you have to RAID-0 then for you to be able to use X-RAID you will have to destroy the volume or do a factory reset and start from scratch.
You will have to backup all your data first, then turn off your NAS and replace/insert the new drives (2x6TB, 2x2TB). You can then perform a Factory reset from the Boot Menu.
(For existing data, I think I have to backup them to another storage, because of Raid 0 configuration)
Correct. Then insert all your drives, and do a factory default procedure via the boot menu. Reconfigure the NAS, and then restore your files from the backup.
My advice is to avoid the WD60EFAX, because it is an SMR drive. Get the older WD60EFRX, or move up to the 8 TB Reds (which use PMR). SMR drives will give uneven performance with write speeds, and there are some scenarios where raid resync or expansion can be extremely slow.
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for your advice,
Yes, you are right and I know the WD EFAX series has performance bottleneck and they are selling these without informing customers which is not acceptable (at least by me) being such a big manufacturer...
(As far as i know the Toshiba still manufacturing PMR on N300 series, except P300)
While the new 2TB-6TB parts are all SMR drives.
"The performance difference between the two is significant, with the 2TB -6TB drives in the 150MB/s to 180MB/s range, while the 8TB-14TB drives run at 198MB/s to 215MB/s. While SMR drives are cheaper to manufacture than PMR drives, none of the savings is being passed on to customers as far as we can tell" (according to extremetech.com)
So, lucky me that i already have the 2TB and 6TB EFRX series (actually i bought 6TBs couple days ago after some research in the market ;))
Since you have an empty bay, you should not need to destroy and re-create the volume, though that may be the fastest way to get where you want to.
Add one 6TB to the NAS, format the drive in the NAS if needed (if it complains about a used drive) and select Add Parity for the volume and let it complete a sync. That should convert it to RAID5, with no increase in volume size. Then, switch on XRAID, and swap one 2TB for the other 6TB. That should go through two sync's -- one for the original 2TB layer and another for the additional 4TB of each of the 6TB drives. You will then have 4TB more than you started with, plus you will have single drive redundancy.
If you had gone with JBOD instead of RAID0, then you'd need to destroy and re-create.
I have just tested this by adding parity to a 3-drive RAID1 and it is syncing. I even switched on XRAID before the sync has completed. I think you could actually change to XRAID first and the new drive would automatically add parity, but I didn';t think to do it that way. I did this on an Ultra4PLus updated to OS6, which likely has similar CPU power as your 214. The first sync is showing a completion time of 13 hours.
Sorry but too late to try, I have already backed up and destroy the 3x2TB drives then installed 2 of 6TB and 2 of 2TB disks side by side (do not know whether it does matter or not the disk order using with X-Raid, btw. please tell if this is wrong).
İt's resyncing right now at %20 for about 2 hours and i will wait for finishing the sync operation (i think i'll wait until morning or go to bed :)), after that i'll reconfigure and check the capacity should be 9.07TB that result of RAID Calculator on Netgear page.
Thanks anyway, i know there are several ways to do that expanding/adding disks to ReadyNAS but I thought that configured disks with Raid 0 ? so then the right way is to start from scratch.
The order in which you install the drives does not matter. If onbe type runs cooler than the others, I'd put them in the center bays.
As you can see from your estimated completion time, you've chosen the fastest route, anyway. Your totally new volume will sync before my reshaped one does, and then I'd still have to add another drive and go through two more. You'll likely have your files restored well before that. An important issue that clearly didn't affect you is that the method you are using makes the files unavailable for some period, while the other does not.
But now anyone else finding this when looking for a solution knows the options. Of course, it's probably a rare situation. Many would fill all four bays before making the change you did.
Btw. I'd like to ask that, do you think about X-Raid is better then traditional Raid 1 / Raid 5 for performance and protection (redundancy) besides easy system management, auto expansion (maybe you used or tested before)...
I'd like to ask that, do you think about X-Raid is better then traditional Raid 1 / Raid 5 for performance and protection (redundancy) besides easy system management, auto expansion (maybe you used or tested before)...
XRAID uses traditional RAID underneath - it amounts to a simplified RAID management interface that makes it easier for most users to set up and expand their RAID array. So the performance and protection is exactly the same as traditional RAID.
RAID-1 and RAID-5 in themselves don't support unequal-sized disks. If you try to set up 2x2TB+2x6TB in "classic" RAID 5, you'd end up treating the 6 TB drives as 2 TB drives (wasting 5 TB of space). What happens with XRAID is that the system sets up two RAID groups - a 4x2TB RAID-5 group that spans all four disks, and a 2x4TB RAID-1 group that uses the extra space on the 6 TB drives. It then concatenates those groups into a single volume. You can do that manually with linux RAID tools (and also with FlexRAID). But XRAID does it automatically for you, which makes it a lotsimpler for most users.
Note that it is important to start with either all 4 drives in place, or start with the smaller drives. XRAID won't expand if you start with 2x6TB and then try to add the two TB drives.
Note that it is important to start with either all 4 drives in place, or start with the smaller drives. XRAID won't expand if you start with 2x6TB and then try to add the two TB drives..
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for all your valuable information, started with all 2x6TB + 2x2TB and it's syncing now at %88...
after that I'll check and inform you what amount of storage space I'll have, to satisfy with XRaid.
Thanks for all your valuable information, started with all 2x6TB + 2x2TB and it's syncing now at %88...
after that I'll check and inform you what amount of storage space I'll have, to satisfy with XRaid.
The volume size should end up at 10 TB (displayed as ~9.09 TiB by the NAS web ui).
The syncing is done in two stages, once for each RAID group. So you probably will see a 6 TB (~5.45 TiB) size in the first stage, and the full volume size after the second stage completes.
The volume size should end up at 10 TB (displayed as ~9.09 TiB by the NAS web ui).
The syncing is done in two stages, once for each RAID group. So you probably will see a 6 TB (~5.45 TiB) size in the first stage, and the full volume size after the second stage completes.
Finally sync is complete and result is the same as you said 9.08TB and X-Raid RAID5...
