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Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

tony359
Apprentice

OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

apologies if this has been discussed before, I cannot find a definite answer.

I am on OS4 on my RN Pro6 and I am planning of migrating to OS6. I currently have 3x4TB HDDs. I am thinking of expanding the volume (which will need to be destroyed first) adding a 1x6TBHDD.

 

I am expecting the OS to only use 4TB of the newly added drive. The unused 2TB will be shown whenever I add another 6TB (or larger) drive. Am I correct and does this apply when installing the system from scratch?

 

Also, I know Netgear never certified the Pro6 for 4TB HDDs - not to mention 6TB HDDs. Am I expecting a WD RED 6TB HDD to work on my system?

 

Thanks all!

Model: ReadyNAS RNDP6610D|ReadyNAS Pro 6
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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

Yes, even when creating a new volume it will create the RAID layer with 4x4TB and see that there's only one higher capacity disk so there's not room to vertically expand yet. If you had two 6TB disks installed when creating the volume it would do the vertical expansion after creating the 4x4TB layer.

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Message 4 of 6

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

1. For vertical expansion you need at least two higher capacity disks using the default X-RAID2 (single-redundancy). If using dual-redundancy (uses RAID-6) you'd need four higher capacity disks for vertical expansion. This is true both of RAIDiator-x86 and OS6.

2. There are some 4TB disks on the compatibility list for the Pro 6. OS6 has better software support for high capacity disks than RAIDiator-x86 did. I think you should find that 6TB disks work well for you based on what I've read of the experiences of others.

 

Note that running OS6 on your system is unsupported, but then you should be backing up your important data regularly anyway and you'd need to before upgrading to OS6 as that process does involve a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything).

Message 2 of 6
tony359
Apprentice

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

thanks mdgm as usual - and nice hearing from you again!

 

All pretty much clear. Just wanted to double check that I am not expanding, I'm reinstalling (obviously!) on single redundancy. Can you confirm the same process will apply - hence 4+4+4+6 will give me 4+4+4 + 4(redundancy) for now?

 

Cheers!

Message 3 of 6
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

Yes, even when creating a new volume it will create the RAID layer with 4x4TB and see that there's only one higher capacity disk so there's not room to vertically expand yet. If you had two 6TB disks installed when creating the volume it would do the vertical expansion after creating the 4x4TB layer.

Message 4 of 6
StephenB
Guru

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive


@tony359 wrote:

 

Also, I know Netgear never certified the Pro6 for 4TB HDDs - not to mention 6TB HDDs. Am I expecting a WD RED 6TB HDD to work on my system?

 

Actually they did certify some 4 TB drives.  But they haven't updated the HCL for a long time, so it isn't a useful guide any more.

 

OS6 systems (including converted legacy NAS) have no known expansion limits.  So you could go up to 12 TB (the largest available drives on the market now).  That said, you should pay attention to power use, as you don't want the system to become too hot.  But WDC Reds all run cool, so there shouldn't by cooling issues with any Red model. 

Message 5 of 6
tony359
Apprentice

Re: OS6 horizontal expansion - adding a larger drive

Thanks Stephen

Indeed I see my 4TB RED drives are on the list now! As you say those run pretty cool so I'm confident it's not going to be an issue. I have purchased a 6TB drive, so next time I upgrade with another 6TB I have an extra 2TB as a treat! 😉

 

Cheers!

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