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ReadyNAS Ultra 6: what's the fastest way to upgrade (replace) all disks and enable RAID 6?
Hi,
I just performed the 4.2.1 --> 6.9.4 upgrade on my legacy ultra 6. In my prior configuration, I had 2 redundant disks. With the 6.9.4 upgrade, it defaults to 1 (and is currently resyncing). I would like to get back to dual redundancy. At the same time, I had started to see errors on 2 of the 6x1TB drives that are currently installed and was planning on replacing all of them with 6x Seagate 4TB IronWolf NAS SATA (ST4000VN008). From what I have read, XRAID in OS6 defaults to RAID5 for 6 or fewer drives and to enable RAID6, I need to switch to FlexRAID, which is destructive (and doesnt support expansion, etc). So, my questions are:
1. The system is currently in the process of syncing with the drives that I intend to replace. Do I need to let that finish?
2. Should I add the new drives one at a time and then switch from XRAID to FlexRAID (to get RAID6)?
3. ...or is there a faster way to get from where I am now to 6x 4TB drives with RAID 6?
So now i guess i need let it complete the sync and add the 4TB drives one-by-one.
I am confused on why you are doing it this way. It would have been faster to do a fresh install with 6x4TB in place, and then switch to RAID-6.
You'll be doing 6 needless resyncs.
Well I am following what I thought were the correct procedures from many threads I read on here...? Luckily I hadn't started pulling / resyncing drives yet. So should I just pull all the drives and replace? I assume I need to power off, install and reboot to do that?
Thanks in advance...
Since I hadnt actually started pulling drives I went ahead and powered down and pulled / swapped all the drives at once (1TB --> new 4TB). On powering up, the system did a factory reset with 6.9.4.
Once the UI was accessible, I went through the wizard and then went to System -> Volumes and removed the new default RAID 5/X-RAID volume by clicking on the gear wheel in the left light-blue box and selecting "Destroy". Once that was done, I could click on each drive in turn and then select "New Volume" on the right of the UI. This created a new RAID 6/FlexRAID volume. After that, I was able to click on the greyed-out XRAID box on the left to switch from FlexRAID back to X-RAID, but now with RAID 6 instead of RAID 5.
Right now the sync is chundering along. Thanks @StephenB for the suggestion.
Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6: what's the fastest way to upgrade (replace) all disks and enable RAID 6?
...I should have added: it is my understanding that I can switch to FlexRAID, create a new RAID6 volume and then switch back to XRAID, retaining the RAID 6. Is that correct?
...I should have added: it is my understanding that I can switch to FlexRAID, create a new RAID6 volume and then switch back to XRAID, retaining the RAID 6. Is that correct?
Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6: what's the fastest way to upgrade (replace) all disks and enable RAID 6?
1. The system is currently in the process of syncing with the drives that I intend to replace. Do I need to let that finish?
Well I managed to answer at least this part: I clicked on the "cog" in the light blue status box on the left side under System --> Volumes and selected "Destroy". That allowed me to delete the default and create a new volume with RAID6. Interestingly I didnt have to switch from XRAID to FlexRAID to get RAID6, the dialog box to create a new XRAID volume offered RAID6 as an option. Nope. It was FlexRAID. But I was able to immediately re-select XRAID. Apologies if anyone read this before I corrected my mistake.
So now i guess i need let it complete the sync and add the 4TB drives one-by-one.
So now i guess i need let it complete the sync and add the 4TB drives one-by-one.
I am confused on why you are doing it this way. It would have been faster to do a fresh install with 6x4TB in place, and then switch to RAID-6.
You'll be doing 6 needless resyncs.
Well I am following what I thought were the correct procedures from many threads I read on here...? Luckily I hadn't started pulling / resyncing drives yet. So should I just pull all the drives and replace? I assume I need to power off, install and reboot to do that?
So now i guess i need let it complete the sync and add the 4TB drives one-by-one.
I am confused on why you are doing it this way. It would have been faster to do a fresh install with 6x4TB in place, and then switch to RAID-6.
You'll be doing 6 needless resyncs.
Well I am following what I thought were the correct procedures from many threads I read on here...? Luckily I hadn't started pulling / resyncing drives yet. So should I just pull all the drives and replace? I assume I need to power off, install and reboot to do that?
Thanks in advance...
Since I hadnt actually started pulling drives I went ahead and powered down and pulled / swapped all the drives at once (1TB --> new 4TB). On powering up, the system did a factory reset with 6.9.4.
Once the UI was accessible, I went through the wizard and then went to System -> Volumes and removed the new default RAID 5/X-RAID volume by clicking on the gear wheel in the left light-blue box and selecting "Destroy". Once that was done, I could click on each drive in turn and then select "New Volume" on the right of the UI. This created a new RAID 6/FlexRAID volume. After that, I was able to click on the greyed-out XRAID box on the left to switch from FlexRAID back to X-RAID, but now with RAID 6 instead of RAID 5.
Right now the sync is chundering along. Thanks @StephenB for the suggestion.
