× NETGEAR will be terminating ReadyCLOUD service by July 1st, 2023. For more details click here.
Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

From NV+ to 316

PatrickJ
Aspirant

From NV+ to 316

Hi! I have had a working NV+ for many years and just upgraded to a 316 that I bought on eBay.

I have 4 2TB drives at 46% capacity of 5.44 TB in my NV+ (with very little use on them). I would like to move them over to the 316 and wanted to seek your advice on the best way to do that. If possible I'd like to avoid buying new drives. I have read the help docs, and it seems to assume that you have all new drives in the new unit. I have 4 spare 350 gb drives that were previously in my NV+ before I increased capacity if that makes any difference.

What I was thinking might work is initialize and update the 316 with one of the spare 350 GB HDs then pop out one of the 2TB drives from the NV+ and start the array in the 316 with that. That would let me backup ~1.8 TB over to the 316. Could I then pop out another drive and move it over and then finish with the balance? I think that would break the NV+ array, correct? Or can X-RAID do a "vertical contraction"? My guess is no. Could the 350 GB drives help me step the NV+ down by systematically switching out 2 TB drives with 350 GB drives? Alternatively, I could move the 700 gb balance after migrating the 1.8 TB to the 350 gb drives using an external enclosure. It would be slow, but a possibility.

As a backup, could I buy a new 2+ TB drive and pop out one of the 2TB from the NV+ drives and move it to the 316. That should give me enough capacity to do a complete backup over to the 316 or will it switch to redundancy right away?

There seem to be many ways to get this done. What is the best way? Thanks for your help!

If it helps, I'm on Windows 10, with Verizon FIOS fiber optic Best,
Patrick Jaszewski
Message 1 of 13

Accepted Solutions
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:

Hi StephenB,

 

Thanks for replying!  What do you think about buying a 3TB disk, doing a full backup from the NV+ to the 3TB in the 316 and then vertically expanding my array using the disks in the NV+?  

 


That won't work with XRAID.  Once you have the 3 TB volume, you can't expand it unless you add 3 TB or larger disks.

 

The external drive is probably a better bet.  You will need to do that backup through a PC, since the NV+ won't recognize a 3 TB drive (either USB or internal).

 

 

View solution in original post

Message 4 of 13

All Replies
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316

XRAID cannot contract, it only expands.  Removing the second disk from the NV+ will destroy the array.  I don't see any need to use the 350 GB drive, if you want to use XRAID on the RN316 it will limit expansion until you replace it with a 2 TB drive..

 

It is safest to have a full backup of the NV+.   Then you can move all the drives, get the RN316 set up, and restore the data from the backup.

 

1.8 TiB of data is a bit awkward, as it won't fit on a 2 TB disk (which holds 1.8 TiB).  So you will need to back up at least some of the files or get two new 2TB drives to start the RN316 (giving you a 4 TB volume when you migrate the first disk from the NV+). 

Message 2 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Hi StephenB,

 

Thanks for replying!  What do you think about buying a 3TB disk, doing a full backup from the NV+ to the 3TB in the 316 and then vertically expanding my array using the disks in the NV+?  I'll have some unused space in the end (~1TB), but it seems easy.  What do you think?  Or am I better off backing up to the 3TB externally and starting the array off fresh?

 

Thanks again!

Patrick

Model: ReadyNAS-NV+|ReadyNAS NV+,RN31600|ReadyNAS 300 Series 6- Bay
Message 3 of 13
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:

Hi StephenB,

 

Thanks for replying!  What do you think about buying a 3TB disk, doing a full backup from the NV+ to the 3TB in the 316 and then vertically expanding my array using the disks in the NV+?  

 


That won't work with XRAID.  Once you have the 3 TB volume, you can't expand it unless you add 3 TB or larger disks.

 

The external drive is probably a better bet.  You will need to do that backup through a PC, since the NV+ won't recognize a 3 TB drive (either USB or internal).

 

 

Message 4 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Awesome!  Thanks for the great advice, StephenB. Can I later add the 3TB drive to the 2 TB disk array if I want?

That helps me a lot, I really appreciate it!

 

Best,

Patrick

Message 5 of 13
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:

Awesome!  Thanks for the great advice, StephenB. Can I later add the 3TB drive to the 2 TB disk array if I want?

 


Yes.  You can either add it, or replace a 2 TB drive with a 3 TB drive.  As you know, you'll waste 1 TB of space on the drive until you add a second one.

 

I suggest NAS-purposed drives (WDC Red or Seagate VN) or an enterprise drive.  I recommend avoiding the Seagate DM.

Message 6 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Again, great advice.  Thanks very much.

 

Best,

Patrick

Message 7 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Hi StephenB,

I now have everything backed up onto the 3 tb drive via USB and popped the 4 2 tb drives into the 316. In following the instructions in the manual I'm supposed to boot into the boot menu and factory default in order to reformat the drives. This is where I'm having trouble right now.

I hold the reset button and while powering on and eventually "Boot Menu" appears, but the arrow keys that are supposed to let me navigate to the factory reset aren't doing anything. I even tried checking back after 2 hours and it still just said "Boot Menu" and navigation didn't work. No luck when I repeated the procedure either.

If it helps, I see 4 drive lights and when I attempt to boot normal, it says Err: Used Disks like I would expect.

Thanks again for your help!

Best,
Patrick Jaszewski
Message 8 of 13
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:



I hold the reset button and while powering on and eventually "Boot Menu" appears, but the arrow keys that are supposed to let me navigate to the factory reset aren't doing anything. I even tried checking back after 2 hours and it still just said "Boot Menu" and navigation didn't work. No luck when I repeated the procedure either.

Odd, and perhaps worth contacting support.

 

Another option is to zero (or unformat) one of the drives.  You can do that by connecting them to a Windows PC (a USB adapter should work).  Is that perhaps an option for you?

 

If the drive is unformatted, the NAS has to do a factory install.  So the process would be to insert just the unformatted disks(s) into the NAS, let it do its install, and then insert the rest after the NAS is operational.

Message 9 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Hi StephenB,

 

Thank you very much for replying.  I would contact support, but I bought the chassis on eBay, so they won't help me.  

 

I'll take your advice and try zeroing one of the drives via USB first and then pop the rest back in.  Thank you very much!

 

Best,

Patrick Jaszewski

Model: RN31600|ReadyNAS 300 Series 6- Bay
Message 10 of 13
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:

 

 

I'll take your advice and try zeroing one of the drives via USB first and then pop the rest back in.  Thank you very much!

 


Let us know how it goes,

 

If you have trouble finding zeroing the drive on a Windows PC, right-click on computer and choose "manage"  You should see the drive in the windows disk manager, and you can right-click on each partition (windows calls it a volume I think) and delete it.   That will unformat the drive, and have the same effect as zeroing it.

 

Also, some vendor diags have a "quick erase" test which zeros sectors at the beginning and end of the drive (leaving the rest alone).  That's good enough, you don't need to zero the entire drive. 

Message 11 of 13
PatrickJ
Aspirant

Re: From NV+ to 316

Perfect, that part worked great.  Thank you!  I'm now booted fully and it automatically set-up X-RAID2.  I have my 316 connected directly to my laptop. I was able to discover my device in the readycould.netgear.com link, but am encountering the same error as in this thread: https://community.netgear.com/t5/New-to-ReadyNAS/readynas-os-6-2-Device-Communication-Error/m-p/1037...

 

It is discoverable, but I get the temporary connectivity issue.  I attempted putting in the additional DNS Server at 8.8.8.8 like you recommended, but still can't get past that.  

Also, when I put the 3 remaining drives in it now says "Recovering Data." Is it trying to build back the data from the array I had in my NV+ onto this new X-RAID2 Array?  That would be totally cool with me.

 

 

 

Message 12 of 13
StephenB
Guru

Re: From NV+ to 316


@PatrickJ wrote:

Also, when I put the 3 remaining drives in it now says "Recovering Data." 


Interesting, and I haven't seen that before.

 

Let us know what you see when it finishes.

Message 13 of 13
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 12 replies
  • 3002 views
  • 5 kudos
  • 2 in conversation
Announcements