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I currently have 3x 4TB hard drives in my readynas setup as Xraid. I have 8TB (slightly under to be exact!) of space. I have one expansion slot free. I am thinking of buying a 8tb or 10tb nas drive to go in there.
1 - Will my 104 work with a drive that big? Somewhere I read it only works up to 16tb, somewhere else i read 32tb and i found a forum that said the capacity limits were removed with a firmware update. I dont want to shell out a lot of money to find it wouldnt work...
2 - If I buy the 8tb or 10 tb and put it in the nas, will xraid "add" another 8th to the avaible space, or does it just act as another 4tb drive.
3 - After installing a 8tb or 10tb drive, if i start replaceing the current 4tb drives, i can take them out, put in the new drive and I loose none of my data?
2 - Total capacity in a RAID5 volume will be increased by the amount of the added drive equal to the largest drive in the exisiting volume. An 8TB drive added to a 3 x 4TB volume will increase total capacity by 4TB; an 8TB drive added to a (2 x 4TB) + (1 x 8TB) volume will increase total capacity by 8TB.
3 - Replace drives one at a time, and wait for volume to sync and change from DEGRADED to REDUNDANT before replacing another drive.
4 - Back up volume before changing firmware or volume expansion and, in any event, just in case.
2 - Total capacity in a RAID5 volume will be increased by the amount of the added drive equal to the largest drive in the exisiting volume. An 8TB drive added to a 3 x 4TB volume will increase total capacity by 4TB; an 8TB drive added to a (2 x 4TB) + (1 x 8TB) volume will increase total capacity by 8TB.
3 - Replace drives one at a time, and wait for volume to sync and change from DEGRADED to REDUNDANT before replacing another drive.
4 - Back up volume before changing firmware or volume expansion and, in any event, just in case.
1 - If you are running OS 6.4 or later, there is no known capacity limit
Right. There was a 16 TiB volume ceiling for the RN100 series early on, but that was addressed in the 6.4.0 firmware.
XRAID capacity is as @coloatty says. Another way to express it: The total volume size is the sum of the drives minus the largest drive.
So you'll need to upgrade one of your existing drives in order to take full advantage of the space of a new 8-10 TB model - doubling the cost of the upgrade.
One option you have is to turn off xraid, and to create a non-redundant (jbod) volume with the new drive. You'll get all the space, but there will be no RAID protection on the new volume. You'll still have RAID protection on the existing volume.
Or you could settle for the 4 TB growth you'll get now, and upgrade another drive later on to get full advantage of the space.
I am thinking of buying a 8tb or 10tb nas drive to go in there.
When you choose the drive, you should research the mounting holes (both on the sides and bottom).
Ideally you'd find a suitable drive that has the middle side mount holes. That will let you use the diskless plastic insert in the tray. The WD80EFZX is compatible with the diskless inserts. The 8 TB Seagate Ironwolf drives aren't.
If there is no middle side mount hole, you can remove that insert, and screw the drive into the bottom of the tray. Likely some of the bottom mount holes won't line up with the holes in the tray. But you should still be able to secure the drive.
1 - Excellent news, as I want to keep upgrading it with new, bigger and bigger HDs
2 - ok here goes:
Slot 1 = 4tb
Slot 2 = 4tb
Slot 3 = 4tb
Slot 4 = 8tb
This will give me 16tb total (12tb usable, 4tb backup) as 4tb of the 8tb HD will be "wasted".
so:
Slot 1 = 4tb
Slot 2 = 4tb
Slot 3 = 8tb
Slot 4 = 8tb
This will still give me 16tb total (12tb usable, 4tb backup) as 4tb of both 8tb HD will be "wasted".
so:
Slot 1 = 4tb
Slot 2 = 8tb
Slot 3 = 8tb
Slot 4 = 8tb
Again this will still give me 16tb total (12tb usable, 4tb backup) as 4tb of three 8tb HD will be "wasted".
therefore:
Slot 1 = 8tb
Slot 2 = 8tb
Slot 3 = 8tb
Slot 4 = 8tb
This will eventually give me 32tb total (26tb usable, 8tb backup) as all drives are the same.
So basically I have to buy 4x 8TB to get anything over 16TB, is that right?
3 - When I first bought the NAS I only had one HD, then after a few months added another and another. It took about 1-2 days to copy everything around and whatever else it does, so this time I guess it will be even longer!
4 - I have nowhere to back it up on to, its only movies and music. my pictures are backed up as I cant afford to loose them!
So basically I have to buy 4x 8TB to get anything over 16TB, is that right?
Your capacity calculations are wrong, which is leading you to a very wrong conclusion.. Again the rule with XRAID is to "sum the disks and subtract the largest" That's not what you did.
3x4TB -> 8 TB volume size
3x4TB+1x8TB-> 12 TB volume size
2x4TB+2x8TB-> 16 TB volume size
1x4TB+3x8TB-> 20 TB volume size
4x8TB -> 24TB volume size
@therealnips wrote: It took about 1-2 days to copy everything around and whatever else it does, so this time I guess it will be even longer!
You will find that the resync times will get longer and longer as you add drives. Every sector in the data volume (including parity) needs to be either read or written as part of the sync.
Though this might seem too technical, the 8 TB isn't really a backup. A backup would be useful on its own. The parity blocks are only useful if 3 disks are still functional. You'll end up with 6 TB of data blocks and 2 TB of partity blocks on each drive. If any one drive fails, the remaining blocks are used to rebuild it. If two drives fail, then nothing can be rebuilt - even though you still have 4 TB of partity blocks.
I have nowhere to back it up on to, its only movies and music.
If you were to lose the movies and music, would you take any steps to get them back? How much work would that be?
When I thought about those questions, I decided to back up everything, not just critical files. If you chose not to back something up, then you will lose it at some point. RAID won't change that. In some ways it makes it more painful, because when that time comes you will lose it all.
If you are ok with just letting the music and movies go when that happens, then of course it's fine not to back them up. I realized that I wouldn't be ok with it, and that I'd be facing a lot of hours tracking things down and re-ripping (or re-purchasing).
Thank you, that explains it more clearly, I cant understand how I screwed the maths up in the first place though! So I think I will buy a 8/10tb nas drive from seagate or WD as it will be worth it in the end.
