I currently have a ReadyNas Ultra 2 with a Samsung HD204UI drive installed. The drive is full, and so I purchased the Western Digital WD30EFRX drive to go in there.
At the moment, I'm thinking of possibly having both drives installed for a total of 5TB storage. An alternative I want to have available is to install the 3TB drive, copy the data from the 2TB drive onto it, and then remove the 2TB drive leaving me with just the 3TB.
As I understand it, for this to be achievable, I need to have both drives corresponding to seperate volumes. That's where my understanding ends however, I have no idea which RAID configuration will allow me to achieve this. At the moment, the configuration page for the ReadyNas shows as this:
With the "RAID Level X-RAID2" set on the current drive, what will happen when I physically install the second drive? Will I be able to format it as a completely separate volume and copy data from the first drive on to it, and then possibly remove the first (2TB) drive?
X-RAID2 will not let you add a second volume. It is designed to give you a single expandable volume. In your specific case, inserting the 3 TB drive would result in adding redundancy and would leave 1 TB of your new disk unused. You would still have 2 TB of storage.
Getting the configuration you want is possible but time consuming.
You would first need to do a full backup of your folders and save your configuration to a file on your PC. Then do a factory default procedure (not installing the second disk yet). This will wipe your data, and also reset your full configuration back to initial installation.
Within the first 10 minutes of starting the factory default, you use RAIDar to set up the NAS to Flex-Raid.
After the factory default completes you (a) first reinstall your add-ons (b) Restore your configuration from the configuration file you saved previously.
The order matters.
Then (c) Install the second disk, and create the new volume from Frontview (d) delete the shares you want to shift to the new volume from Volume C, and re-create them on Volume D (being careful to maintain their settings and permissions).
Finally, re-load the data into the shares from your data backup.
I'll bear that in mind for the future, but as you say it does look time consuming. I am also not comfortable with wiping the data (I'm assuming from what you've written there is no way I can do what I want and keep the data as it is on the 2TB drive), as I have only one backup and if anything happens to that during this whole process I am well and truly screwed.
What I'd prefer to do then is remove the 2TB drive completely, and simply use the 3TB drive only. I can then copy all my data onto it using the external drive I'm using as a backup (either connected directly to the NAS or through my Windows PC).
At this stage, I have two possibilities for what I may want to do. The first is add a second identical drive in the future, and use it as a separate volume. I'm assuming for this to work out I'd have to set the ReadNas to Flex-Raid, at this time, as you've mentioned?
The second is I could add a second identical drive but have it in the same volume for additional space (not redundancy). In which case I'd ask is it possible to do this on Flex-Raid (thereby keeping my options open until I install another drive), or would I have to choose another config?
Lastly, if I do have two separate volumes on two identical HDDs, can I have a single share setup across both of them (so having the files spread across both drives)?
The decision to go with redundancy or more capacity is a tough one with a 2-slot unit. Either way you need a backup of course. I decided to go for capacity on my duo v1, but have redundancy on my nv+ and pro.
Anyway, regrettably there is no way that you can do what you want and keep your data as it is. Also, there is no way to have a single share span two volumes.
I am not sure if flex-raid lets you convert a raid-0 disk volume to raid-1 when you add a new disk. Hopefully someone who knows that for sure will chime in. Though even if that is not possibly, you could use Frontview backup to periodically backup data from one volume to the other. That is not instant (like mirroring); on the other hand it gives you a bit more protection against accidental file deletion. Instant mirroring is not always a good thing!
BTW, If you migrate everything to your 3 TB drive (using flex-raid), then once everything is successfully copied you could delete the partitions from your old drive (you do this on a PC) and then install it as your second volume. You could then move some shares to the 2 TB volume, or just use it for new shares.
Can I ask also what will happen to the data on the 2TB drive when I remove it and reset the ReadyNas (thereby deleting any share information)? If I were to re-install the 2TB drive after the factory reset, will I be able to access that data?
If not, is there any other way I could go about that without the ReadyNas?
Can I ask also what will happen to the data on the 2TB drive when I remove it and reset the ReadyNas (thereby deleting any share information)? If I were to re-install the 2TB drive after the factory reset, will I be able to access that data?
If not, is there any other way I could go about that without the ReadyNas?
If you power down the NAS and set the existing drive aside, then you can put that drive back in the NAS and power it back up. The OS, config, and data are on the drive, so it is self-contained. You need to be careful to power down the NAS before you put the old drive back, and of course it needs to be the only drive in the NAS when you start it back up.
BTW, you will almost certainly lose the contents of the 2 TB drive if you attempt to add it to the NAS with 3 TB drive installed. So be careful not to do that until after you have restored the data to the new drive.
You can also access the data from other Linux machines that have SATA interfaces. There are some PC programs out there that look like they would work - but I have not used them, or seen any confirmation here.
Ok, that's all done and everything seems to have gone well. I did also remove the 2TB drive as suggested and will keep it safe.
Just a few quick questions:
-The web config utility is showing the volume as a "RAID Level 0, Single disk". Is this what I'm after? Will I now be able to add a second drive in the future as a separate volume independent of the first? Can you confirm also that this was only possible using the Flex-raid option, and not the XRAID2 option (which, as I understand, is not possible to expand in a 2 slot unit as it automatically allocates the second drive as redundancy)?
-To make things quicker, can I directly attach my NTFS formatted external drive (which is the backup drive) to the ReadyNas through the USB3 port to transfer the data back onto it? This seems better than having to do the transfer through my PC.
-I setup a share, but the only options I got where for permissions, names etc. Can I safely assume the NAS automatically sets the share to cover the whole available storage on the drive?
-As I understand it, 3TB drives show as 2.72TB on Windows PCs. However, it is only reporting 2.70TB. Further, only 2.66TB is available as "free" space even though the share is empty. Is this normal?
-Raid level 0, single disk is what you want. You should then be able to insert a second disk and create a D volume (which would also be Raid level 0, single disk). This is certainly not possible with XRAID2.
-According to http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/networ ... ra2_7.html doing the transfer over USB will result in speeds of around 14 MB/s with NTFS. Based on that review, it appears to me that transferring through the PC on a gigabit network is by far the fastest way to restore the data. The USB is faster than 100 gigabit though. BTW, if you use the PC you might look into robocopy, it is a windows utility that should already be there.
-shares are like folders on ordinary hard drives - they all share all the space.
-2.7 is about what you should see. There is an OS partition, and the snapshot is reserved.
I also have an Ultra 2. I want to expand the storage by adding a new HDD. It got setup automatically as a X-RAID2.
Now, can I remove one drive, reset Ultra2 and set it up as Flex-RAID, mount the second HDD that was setup as X-RAID2 and copy everything back to the Flex-RAID. Then, I remove the Flex drive, Reset Ultra2 and set up the second HDD as Flex RAID too and mount the initial Flex RAID?
This would avoid the hasle of copying all files over the ethernet onto a backup disk, which could actually be one of the 2 that are inside Ultra2 but reformatted as NTFS(?) for my W7 Ultimate PC to access it.
the reason I did this was that I could not find the option at the bottom of my reply to subscribe to the other thread and get the response notification.
