Expanding an Ultra4 - Backup, Factory Default and Restore? Just fill up the slots

[aim54x]

I have been running a ReadyNAS Ultra 4 (RNDU4000) for a few years now with XRaid and 2x2tb (WD Red) drives. I am now rapidly running out of storage and looking up expand my volume. I am considering wether it would be worth backing up, performing a factory default and then restoring to reset the unit with a base of 2x4tb drives to enable straight expansion to 16tb (4x4tb) in the future whilst I have a managable amount of data to backup. I am also unsure if about backup and restore procedures on these units as the ReadyNAS box is used primarily as a layer of backup for my files as well as a DLNA server.

1) if I use a large HDD to back up the ReadyNAS via USB can I use this backup to restore the ReadyNAS after a factory default?
2) should I save myself the hassle and just throw extra drives in and worry about it all later?

My understanding is that you can expand a maximum of 8TB on top of your initial size, I will not be able to expand to 4x4TB drives without a factory reset as I have started with a 2x2TB initial size. I am a bit confused about the 16TB limit, depending on the firmware version (I will have to check) you can perform a factory reset to go beyond 16TB? I am sure that by the time I need that much storage I will have invested in a 2nd NAS box though.

A further question would be in regards to expanding the volume without a factory defualt.  Can someone confirm that if I add a 4tb drive ie (2, 2, 4, 0) I will have 4TB available (4TB usable space, 2TB redundancy and 2TB wasted), but if I slot a 2nd 4TB drive ie (2, 2, 4, 4) will I have 10TB available (10TB usable space, 2TB redundancy), or will I have 6TB (6TB usable, 2TB redundancy, 4TB wasted), and any expansion after would require a factory reset?

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

1) Yes

Your volume capacity started out at roughly 1.8TB so you can expand up to 9.8TB

Disks larger than 2TB were not supported till 4.2.16. You should already be running firmware much newer than this, but if not update the firmware before adding larger capacity disks.

Yes, you can do a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything) with the disks in place to get a larger volume than 16TB. This should only be a problem if using 6TB disks or larger.

In the second of those scenarios you would have 8TB. The capacity of the largest disk is used for redundancy.

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

1) Yes

Your volume capacity started out at roughly 1.8TB so you can expand up to 9.8TB

Disks larger than 2TB were not supported till 4.2.16. You should already be running firmware much newer than this, but if not update the firmware before adding larger capacity disks.

Yes, you can do a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything) with the disks in place to get a larger volume than 16TB. This should only be a problem if using 6TB disks or larger.

In the second of those scenarios you would have 8TB. The capacity of the largest disk is used for redundancy.

[aim54x]

Thanks for the quick reply, I think you have managed to answer most of my questions.

I will definitely check my firmware version before doing anything. Knowing that I can get my current system up to 9.8TB means I may just be lazy and just throw an extra drive in and let it expand and hope that I have invested in another ReadyNAS, or even larger HDDs are available when the time comes to reset for further expansion. At my current rate it will be more than a few years before this becomes necessary.

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@mdgm wrote:

The capacity of the largest disk is used for redundancy.

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I was going to ask you to elaborate on this, but found the NetGear Raid Calculator (I have never found this before, only the Synology one)

http://rdconfigurator.netgear.com/raid/index.html

Thanks so much

[mdgm-ntgr]

Well say you have 2x2TB and 2x4TB.

You would have a RAID-5 layer of 4x2TB and a RAID-1 layer of 2x2TB. 2TB + 2TB = 4TB, the capacity of the largest disk.

Note if you did a factory default with 2x2TB and 2x4TB in place the initial volume capacity would be from the 4x2TB layer. So roughly 5.4TB would be the starting point. The second layer would be added as expansion.

This also means that to get a volume capacity larger than 16TB you would want equal sized disks.

Our current generation x86 models e.g. 314, have neither of these expansion limitations.

You can run OS6 on the Ultra 4, but tis is unsupported.

[aim54x]

That I didn't factor, I will just have to remember to ensure I have equal sized disks in place before performing a factory reset.

I did have a look at running OS6 on my Ultra but have decided to live with the limitations for now. Although I am eyeing off the current generation units, it is shame that the dollars dont stretch so far at the moment.

[aim54x]

My extra drives arrived, I chose to do a factory default to reset the base image, however my unit now has a flashing '4' and appears to be stuck booting, it has been like this for the last 20mins. My current drive setup is 2x2tb WD Red and 2x2tb Seagate NAS.

When I performed the Factory Default I did notice that the screen said:

"Err could not p

c: XX%"

the XX counting up to 100.

[mdgm-ntgr]

The firmware on the flash was corrupt.

Now that this problem has been fixed, a subsequent factory default worked fine.

[aim54x]

Thank you so much. You have gone above and beyond helping me out.