Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
I've been using my ReadyNAS 314 for a long time now, with 4 x 3TB WD drives, in a RAID 5 configuration. Recently I started running out of space, so I bought a single 10TB drive to replace one of the existing 3TB drives. Needless to say I didn't read up enough before going ahead, so after I switched out the drive and let the NAS rebuild and resync, I ended up with no more space than before. I assume that this is because of the way that RAID 5 works, and I can't use the full capacity of my 10TB drive if it is surrounded by 3TB drives.
What is a good suggestion to get around this, other than replacing all my 3TB drives with 10TB drives, which would be unnecessarily expensive at this point? It seems like one option would be to try to get my NAS to treat the 10TB drive as a separate storage entity, and the 3 remaining 3TB drives as a RAIDed triad... Does that make sense, or are there other options that I can use to try to get more space out of the configuration?
Thankful for any suggestions, and please let me know if I should contribute more information - I believe the NAS is up to date with the latest drivers for its models. Thanks!
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
Thanks - I was afraid that this might be the only solution, as it is quite expensive. There is no option to have one disk be separate from the others then, with a ReadyNAS?
Thanks - I was afraid that this might be the only solution, as it is quite expensive. There is no option to have one disk be separate from the others then, with a ReadyNAS?
No. You can not take drives out of an active RAID array without the volume being degraded. If you have a RAID 5 with 4 drives then all data is spread out over all 4 drives so that if any drive fails the data can be restored from the remaining 3 drives.
If you wish to go from 4 to 3 drives in your array then I'm afriad there is no other way than to backup destroy the volume and restore the data back.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
You're 10TB drive is stuck as is until you either add a second 10TB drive to take advantage of that extra space or redo your Raid again with the 3 other drives using a Flex-Raid setup and then using the 1 TB drive alone. of course you would have no safetly net with a single HDD by it's self, but it is doable. It's just to late now.
Next time, you, and this goes for others, you can check out this handy web page Netgear created called the RAID Calculator. Which looks like it has recently been updated to 12 TB HDD's. The last time I saw it a couple weeks ago it only wewnt to 8TB. So using it, you can see what kind of results you have popping in 1 HDD or more then one and of differnt sizes. So if you used this before hand, you would have saw that most of that 10TB HDD would not have been used until you popped in a second 10TB HDD. You can also compair from a XRaid setup to a Flex-Raid setup.
Next time, you, and this goes for others, you can check out this handy web page Netgear created called the RAID Calculator. Which looks like it has recently been updated to 12 TB HDD's. The last time I saw it a couple weeks ago it only wewnt to 8TB. So using it, you can see what kind of results you have popping in 1 HDD or more then one and of differnt sizes.
You do need to be careful here - the tool doesn't show you upgrade "what-ifs", it only shows you what space you'd get if you did a factory install with those drives in place.
For instance if he replaced a 3 TB drive with a 2 TB drive, the tool would show a 1 TB drop off in capacity. But if he did it in a real system, he'd end up with a degraded volume.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
You mean that NAS would actually try to do something with that smaller HDD instead of just ignoring it? Again is case people don't know, you can go same size HDD or larger, you can't go to a smaller HDD or remove a HDD without starting over brand new. Again I figured the NAS was smart enough that it would ignore a HDD thrown in that was smaller. Not just try to use it and fail and screw things up. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to allow something like that to happen. After all it should be a simple check of the drive size before doing anything with it.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
If a volume exists with 2 HDDs of 2TB and someone check the RAID calculator to see what will be the capacity of the volume after adding a 1TB HDD, as the RAID calculator is based on volume creation, it will use the 1TB HDD, therefore it will show a 3TB volume.
If you create a volume with 2 HDDs of 2TB and 1 HDD of 1TB, the volume will be: RAID5 (111) + RAID1 (11) = 3TB.
If you create a volume with 2 HDDs of 2TB, the volume will be: RAID1 (22) = 2TB. If you add 1 HDD of 1TB, the volume will be: RAID1 (22) + unused (1) = 2TB.
It would be neat if the RAID calculator supported simulating X-RAID and Flex-RAID expansion! But It currently does not.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
Not only the starting point but also the history. For example, if your existing volume contains 2 HDDs of 2TB in RAID1. Depending on the history, you might actually be able to add a 1TB HDD in the volume!
- If you created the volume initially with two HDDs of 1TB, then upgraded both HDDs to 2TB while being in X-RAID, there are actually two partitions of 1TB(ish) on each HDD. If you add a 1TB HDD, the volume will expand! From RAID1 (11) + RAID1 (11) to RAID5 (111) to RAID1 (11).
- If you did the same thing but performed the upgrade of the HDDs while being in Flex-RAID, then instead of creating a secondary array, it extended the existing array in place. Therefore, you won't be able to add a 1TB HDD. From RAID1 (22) to RAID1 (22) + unused (1).
These are based on the expansion rules of FW 6.5.0. Some things may have changed since. I had posted the results of a lengthy experiment here somewhere.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
I think people are really over thinking this. Thinking of things most people arn't going to try. They're going to pop their drives in, when needing more space pop in larger HDD's. How many people really are going to go backwards? I have a bunch of smaller HDD's laying around here from over the years. never have I thought, hey, let me throw that small drive into the NAS. How many are using RAID 50 or 60? As long as a person knows equal or greater size HDD as a replacment, then for the most part the Calculator works just fine. If it's a new setup, it should also be fine. Again for most users. You're always going to find loopholes. The program is at least smart enough to switch from XRaid 5 to XRaid 6 when you get to a 7th HDD. I think in general most people are using XRaid 1, 5 or a even larger NAS, 6.
If you're using Flex-Raid, or some off beat Raid format on your NAS, I'm pretty sure at that point you know what you're doing. You're not some clueless person. I'm sure there's a few exceptions to the rule. For the most part and most people, the Raid Calculator works more then well enough. Maybe a few things could be made more clear on the page.
I have a bunch of smaller HDD's laying around here from over the years. never have I thought, hey, let me throw that small drive into the NAS.
I've seen lots of posts over the years from people who've done exactly that.
I am thinking that it would better for Netgear customers if they had a way to confirm their plan before they purchase disks, or at least before they start swapping stuff around.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
Like most things, it's always better to do some research FIRST before just jumping in blind. That can in general turn out bad. Be it a house, a Car, a Surround Sound Reciever, or a NAS.
Re: Looking for suggestions on setting up my ReadyNAS314, and choosing the right RAID setup
That's the thing, people don't. And you can't expect every user to become and want to become experts in every device they have. And that's true at every level. Even if you think you know everything, maybe one day you'll meet a storage Engineer that will explain that you're not doing it the right way. Would you like if he told you that you should have researched it first? You can't know everything and be right about everything. Improving usability and user friendliness of a device is never a bad thing. The ReadyNAS UI is made to be usable even without advanced knowledge in network, storage or even computing. Adding features to help users understand what's happening or will happen surely isn't a bad thing. Also, reverting a bad setting on Samba or changing an option in a backup job is easy. But you can't go back once the volume started an expansion. I almost think it would be a good thing for the NAS to wait 10 minutes before using any newly inserted HDD while showing in the UI what will happen, so it gives the opportunity to the user to either change the settings or pull the HDD.
I almost think it would be a good thing for the NAS to wait 10 minutes before using any newly inserted HDD while showing in the UI what will happen, so it gives the opportunity to the user to either change the settings or pull the HDD.
That's similar to my built-in expansion planner tool idea. Not sure you need a 10 minute window, it'd probably be better to wait for the user to see the result and then confirm the expansion.
@jak0lantash wrote: And you can't expect every user to become and want to become experts in every device they have
Yes I agree. Plenty of users stumble on this, and that should be enough to indicate that the UI could use some work in this area.
