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ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question

TomBlack
Guide

ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question

Firmware is 6.8.0

 

Currently running 6 x 4Tb on default X-Raid.  Looking to vertically expand the NAS with 6 x 10Tb drives.  According to the v6.5 OM, I need to replace 1 drive at a time until resyched x 2.  Plan to replace all drives this way.

 

Are there any issues I need to consider before doing this expansion?

 

Thanks

Model: RN51600|ReadyNAS 516 6-Bay
Message 1 of 4

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question


@TomBlack wrote:

Firmware is 6.8.0


That's currently the latest

 


@TomBlack wrote:

 

Currently running 6 x 4Tb on default X-Raid.  Looking to vertically expand the NAS with 6 x 10Tb drives.  According to the v6.5 OM, I need to replace 1 drive at a time until resyched x 2.  Plan to replace all drives this way.


Yes. Using the default X-RAID you'd need to replace two disks (one at a time before moving onto replacing the next disk) before vertical expansion can take place. Expansion can only take place when redundant space can be added.

 


@TomBlack wrote:

 

Are there any issues I need to consider before doing this expansion?


It's recommended to update your regular backup first. If any disks are failing (you can check SMART+ stats, smart_history.log) then you should start by replacing those disks first.

 

@TomBlack wrote:

How stable is vertical expansion??

Very stable. md raid is mature. The greatest risk is that if a disk that you're not replacing fails during the resync.

@TomBlack wrote:

Does one really need to do an external backup??

Well that's up to you. If your data is important you should run backups regularly anyway rather than storing your data on just the one device.

RAID is great, but there are a whole range of problems it cannot protect you against e.g. accidental file deletion, fire, flood, theft to name a few of these. Snapshots can provide some protection against accidental file deletion, but you shouldn't solely rely on that. Furthermore whilst RAID may provide protection against one/more disk failures, this protection is lost/reduced when you're replacing disks to expand an array. During the rebuild you're vulnerable to additional disk failures.

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Message 3 of 4

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TomBlack
Guide

Re: ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question

Follow up question.....

 

How stable is vertical expansion??  Does one really need to do an external backup??

Message 2 of 4
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question


@TomBlack wrote:

Firmware is 6.8.0


That's currently the latest

 


@TomBlack wrote:

 

Currently running 6 x 4Tb on default X-Raid.  Looking to vertically expand the NAS with 6 x 10Tb drives.  According to the v6.5 OM, I need to replace 1 drive at a time until resyched x 2.  Plan to replace all drives this way.


Yes. Using the default X-RAID you'd need to replace two disks (one at a time before moving onto replacing the next disk) before vertical expansion can take place. Expansion can only take place when redundant space can be added.

 


@TomBlack wrote:

 

Are there any issues I need to consider before doing this expansion?


It's recommended to update your regular backup first. If any disks are failing (you can check SMART+ stats, smart_history.log) then you should start by replacing those disks first.

 

@TomBlack wrote:

How stable is vertical expansion??

Very stable. md raid is mature. The greatest risk is that if a disk that you're not replacing fails during the resync.

@TomBlack wrote:

Does one really need to do an external backup??

Well that's up to you. If your data is important you should run backups regularly anyway rather than storing your data on just the one device.

RAID is great, but there are a whole range of problems it cannot protect you against e.g. accidental file deletion, fire, flood, theft to name a few of these. Snapshots can provide some protection against accidental file deletion, but you shouldn't solely rely on that. Furthermore whilst RAID may provide protection against one/more disk failures, this protection is lost/reduced when you're replacing disks to expand an array. During the rebuild you're vulnerable to additional disk failures.

Message 3 of 4
TomBlack
Guide

Re: ReadyNAS 51600 Vertical Expansion Question

Thanks for the reply.

Current drive Health is perfect....all 6 Health Panels show zeros.  The drives are Enterprise Level and less than a year old and not used hard...they should survive an expansion and not cause issues.  So to your comment, if they don't fail during synch, then the vertical expansion should succeed and increase storage capacity.

 

Have been conflicted about adding a backup to the NAS, i.e. another NAS.  Guess my plan was to go with a good piece of hardware with multiple Enterprise Level disks running RAID5.  If there was a disk problem/failure, RAID would synch the replacement drive and life would be good again.

 

When I read the OM, the manual portrays Vertical Expansion as a "walk in the park" if one follows the steps.  Guess I would like for this to be 100% true and reliable.

 

Thanks

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