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[Digital999]

Removed two disks from an older system and installed in the ReadyNAS system.

INstalled into existing system and get an error message.

What do I do to get the system to recognize these drives and add to the current configuration?

Obviously I am missing something here.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Digital999 wrote:

Yes, we want tow different volumes of different sizes.  Lots of history there but that is what we want.

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Have you switched to flexraid?  If you haven't, then that is the first step.  If you see a green stripe on the XRAID control, then click on it.  (the green stripe signifies XRAID is on).

Then you'd select the two disks and create a new volume on them.

Not sure what is going on with disk 4.  It kind of looks like you'd already created a volume, but and not just formatted the drives???  If that is the case, you'd need to click on the volume settings wheel for bank-3 and bank-4, and delete those volumes (before you can create a new RAID-1 volume).

[StephenB]

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@Digital999 wrote:

What do I do to get the system to recognize these drives and add to the current configuration?

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The NAS doesn't realize that these are from an old volume.  One option is to power down, and remove them, and then power up without them.  Then connect the drives to a PC and either remove the partitions with Windows Disk Manager, or simply format the disks.

If you remove the partitions, then the NAS will think they are blank when you hot-insert them, and automatically add them to the array (one at a time).  If you reformat them, you will need to select them from the NAS web ui, and format them again in order to get them added to the array.

[Digital999]

Thank you for your reply -- much appreciated.

Moving disks to a PC environment and back after reformatting is way past what our field folks could handle successfully.

Instead I powered down, removed the drives, powered up and inserted them one at a time and formatted each drive with the ReadyNAS software.

Then I fiddled -- now each drive is recognized and one of them is characterized as a new volume -- Bank 2.

As you can see the two drives are 'sort of' recognized. One is a JBOD and the other is ??

Any suggestions on how to move forward to make them (3 and 4 from the top) into a RAID 1 volume?

[StephenB]

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@Digital999 wrote:

Thank you for your reply -- much appreciated.

Moving disks to a PC environment and back after reformatting is way past what our field folks could handle successfully.

Instead I powered down, removed the drives, powered up and inserted them one at a time and formatted each drive with the ReadyNAS software.

Then I fiddled -- now each drive is recognized and one of them is characterized as a new volume -- Bank 2.

As you can see the two drives are 'sort of' recognized. One is a JBOD and the other is ??

Any suggestions on how to move forward to make them (3 and 4 from the top) into a RAID 1 volume?

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[StephenB]

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@Digital999 wrote:

Any suggestions on how to move forward to make them (3 and 4 from the top) into a RAID 1 volume?

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Is that what you want?  Personally I'd stick with XRAID, which would give me a single 22 TB volume.

If you make 3+4 RAID 1, then you'd have a 12 TB volume plus a 6 TB volume - so 4 TB less space overall.

[Digital999]

The actual reply did not seem to post.  Post again please.

[StephenB]

Try refreshing and see if it shows up.  Your reply was within a minute of mine.

But here it is again.

@Digital999 wrote:

Any suggestions on how to move forward to make them (3 and 4 from the top) into a RAID 1 volume?

Is that what you want?  Personally I'd stick with XRAID, which would give me a single 22 TB volume.

If you make 3+4 RAID 1, then you'd have a 12 TB volume plus a 6 TB volume - so 4 TB less space overall.

[Digital999]

Yes, we want tow different volumes of different sizes.  Lots of history there but that is what we want.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Digital999 wrote:

Yes, we want tow different volumes of different sizes.  Lots of history there but that is what we want.

---

Have you switched to flexraid?  If you haven't, then that is the first step.  If you see a green stripe on the XRAID control, then click on it.  (the green stripe signifies XRAID is on).

Then you'd select the two disks and create a new volume on them.

Not sure what is going on with disk 4.  It kind of looks like you'd already created a volume, but and not just formatted the drives???  If that is the case, you'd need to click on the volume settings wheel for bank-3 and bank-4, and delete those volumes (before you can create a new RAID-1 volume).

[Digital999]

Thanks -- late in the day.  Will attempt tomorrow.

Thanks for the guidance.

[Digital999]

Thanks again for you guidance.  As suggested, I deleted the JBOD volume, had two drives shown, selected both and made a Raid 1 volume. 

It is grinding away as it attempts to sync the raid disks.  There is no useful data there but after 18 hours it will complete and we can go forward. 

I then reproduced the issue on another system and was able to document the process. 

[Digital999]

Thanks again for your help.

In review it seems that the key was to power down the system and then disconnect the two drive and then power up.

Plugging in the drives when the system was operational seemed to get the system to recognize them and then make a new RAID volume. 

[Sandshark]

If XRAID is off, then the system should not automatically create a volume or add drives to an existing one.  Hot insertion is the recommended method for expansion.

[Digital999]

Good to know.

That is what worked but it took a while to fiddle enough to get it to work. 

The Netgear documentation seems deficient on this circumstance.  Could use improvement.

[StephenB]

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@Digital999 wrote:

There is no useful data there but after 18 hours it will complete and we can go forward. 

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RAID operates at the block level. Sync always takes the same amount of time - even if the volume is empty.