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Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

valsa1
Aspirant

Duo V2 one disk expansion

Hi all ,
I have a duo V2 with 1 disk 1Tb installed in X-RAID2.
I wanted to expand and bought a brand new 3Tb disk
Added the new 3Tb disk to the NAS , sync started and anded after 5 hours successfully
How can i extract the 1 Tb old disk and expand to 3Tb leaving 1 disk ?

Tried to stop , extract old 1 Tb disk leaving the 3Tb disk and restart but nothing happend . I stil lhave 1Tb space
Message 1 of 14
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

You need to add a second 3TB disk to get expansion, or backup your data, then do a factory reset (wipes all data, settings, everything) and restore data from backup.
Message 2 of 14
valsa1
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

Oppps .... thanks for reply
Very bad news !
No way to extend existing volume (i have root and ssh open ) ?
Message 3 of 14
BogyOne
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

Hi All,
I am using Ready NAS Duo v2 and since I have similar questions I would like to reconfirm what do I need to do.
I have hardly any knowledge of RAIDs and NAS.

I have bought 4TB drive to ultimately replace the 1TB which came with the device. I added it to NAS, it munched for some time and then as I understood it - created XRAID2 of size 1TB on both disks.

I believed that it would be enough to take out old disk to have the size expanded to 4TB but after several attempts it always remained at 1TB. After reading the response to this post I understood that NAS will not automatically expand the volume of larger drive to use its full capacity, is this correct?

If yes then I need to back NAS up, perform a factory reset and restore the data to larger drive from the back up - correct?

I have not fully comprehended how to make a NAS back up to the local PC from reading a manual. Can you help me out with navigating to proper option?

Would there be a problem with restoring data from back up if I change RAID modes, e.g. to JBOD of 5TB size?

Many thanks for your advice!
B1
Message 4 of 14
StephenB
Guru

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

When you installed the 4 TB drive, XRAID2 migrated you to RAID-1. Volume size is 1 TB to match the smallest disk.

Removing the 1 TB drive then results in the volume being degraded. However it is still 1 TB. You can purchase a second 4 TB drive, and insert it in the empty (or 1 TB) slot. That will expand to 4 TB, and will be protected.

The simplest way to back up your NAS to a local PC is to drag/drop the folders on the NAS to PC folders. I suggest downloading teracopy, and using it's verification mode. It will take longer, but it ensure that everything is properly copied.

There should be no problem restoring the folders. After the reset you will need to recreate the shares (putting some of them on the 1 TB volume, and the rest on the 4 TB volume).
Message 5 of 14
lforbes
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

So I had two disks, both JBOD and separate volumes both 3TB. My 2nd Volume Disk 2 died and I replaced it with a 4TB. However, the JBOD detected it ONLY as a 3TB and created a new 2.7TB volume instead of the 3.7TB.

 

It did NOT auto-expand from the original settings. I have the latest software and firmware.

 

This software is very pathetic.

Message 6 of 14
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

We recommend sticking with the default X-RAID2. With non-redundant volumes if a disk fails and you have no backup you may lose all your data.

 

You could try backign up your data, doing a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything), choose JBOD and then restore your data from backup.

Message 7 of 14
lforbes
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

The RAID is not useful because you put in 6TB and get 3TB of usable space. I don't want to pay 2x as much for the same amount of space for a backup drive. I don't need a backup of my backup. 

 

The whole purpose of JBOD rather than a raid stripe is that if one drive failes you lose only 1 volume, not both. 

 

JBOD is the best configuration because one drive failed but I could use my 2nd drive for months before replacing the first. 

 

I know I can do a factory reset but then that just means that Netgear software is defective. The whole point of having a JBOD is that you shouldn't have to do a factory reset. 

 

As as an engineer I get asked a lot for the best companies for hardware and I am so far not impressed with the limitations of Netgear at all. 

 

The Netgear manual website says the drive will "expand" automatically so if it doesn't does this mean the NAS hardware is defective?

 

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20982/~/how-do-i-expand-a-flex-raid-volume-on-my-duo-v...

Message 8 of 14
StephenB
Guru

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion


@lforbes wrote:

 

... The whole point of having a JBOD is that you shouldn't have to do a factory reset. 

 


But you didn't choose to use JBOD, and you certainly knew you were set up for XRAID.


The Netgear manual website says the drive will "expand" automatically so if it doesn't does this mean the NAS hardware is defective?

 

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20982/~/how-do-i-expand-a-flex-raid-volume-on-my-duo-v...


The hardware is fine.  Your link is clearly for Flex-Raid, and you were using XRAID- which is explained quite clearly on page 19 of the software manual (http://www.readynas.com/download/documentation/UM/RAIDiator5-3_Home_SW_en_Nov711.pdf):

 

With X-RAID2, you can start out with one hard disk, add a second disk for data protection, then add more disks for additional capacity, and X-RAID2 accommodates the new disks automatically.

 

If you are saying that you should have been able to convert xraid to jbod before you inserted the second drive, then I'd agree.  Netgear has provided a non-destructive control to switch between flexraid and xraid on the newer OS-6 NAS, but chose not to retrofit the older Raidiator 4.x and 5.x firmware with that particular feature.

 

But here you simply added the disk without taking the time to read the manual.  So I'm thinking this is really on you, not Netgear.

 

That said, it would be convenient to be able to downgrade raid-1 back to jbod.  It is a corner case (you couldn't downgrade a 3 disk RAID-5 array to a 2 disk RAID-1 array, and most other disk-adds simply can't be undone w/o data loss).  However, the corner case would still be worth implementing in a future version of OS 6.

 

Message 9 of 14
lforbes
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

I don't think you understood my post? I am a senior computer engineer who manages corporate servers at work so I had no problems setting up JBOD within the first 10min using RAIDr. I didn't use ANY type of raid at all as I did not want redundancy and I still don't.

 

I had a JBOD with two 3TB drives on two volumes and then one drive died so I plugged a 4TB drive in and it detected it but the NAS incorrectly created it as a 3TB volume when it should have created it as a 4TB volume. 

 

The link to the document was for the section that says JBOD are created to the volume size which in actuality is completely incorrect. 

 

It it appears that the NAS is incapable of detecting a different size in an existing JBOD configuration unless a factory reset is done. 

 

I will probably have to switch to Qnap or Synology because they actually have the ability to manage the hardware properly. 

Message 10 of 14
StephenB
Guru

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion


@lforbes wrote:

I don't think you understood my post? 

 


Yes (and my apology).  I looked at an earlier post on the thread, and saw the XRAID2 creation, and didn't notice that was a different poster.  As an aside, that is why we prefer new threads for each problem - it is too easy to mix up posters.  But I should have caught it.

 

I have no quarrels with folks who want jbod btw - I use RAID-5 on my main NAS, but I do use jbod on the backups.  I don't need the availability of RAID for the backups, and if I ever needed to recover data, I'd much rather work with a standalone disk.


 

I had a JBOD with two 3TB drives on two volumes and then one drive died so I plugged a 4TB drive in and it detected it but the NAS incorrectly created it as a 3TB volume when it should have created it as a 4TB volume. 

 


I agree it should not have matched the old volume size.

 

I believe the current OS 6 NAS would have handled this correctly (at least I was able to replace my 3 TB jbod disk with a 6 TB disk, and did not have your problem).

 

You could try going in with ssh and grow the ext partition.  It might confuse the firmware (its possible that the 3 TB size is in a database entry somewhere).  But if you are facing a reset anyway, there is nothing to lose.

Message 11 of 14
lforbes
Aspirant

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

I did do a separate post but no one replied so I thought it more efficient to reply to one that had email notifications of the threads as well. Just an old trick of the trade from many years on MS boards. 

 

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS/Replacing-JBOD-drive-in-ReadyNas-Duo-v2/td-p/97...

 

I got this NAS brand new 2 years ago so I don't want to have to replace it yet. 

 

You mentioned an SSH command? Is there any documentation on connecting via command line? We manage Linux servers so I could probably figure it out. It is just time otherwise re-copying back 2TB of data after a factory reset. 

Message 12 of 14
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion

We are using md raid, LVM and EXT4 on the Duo v2. So if you are familiar with those there should be a way.

As StephenB mentioned you wouldn't run into this problem on our current devices.

 

Can you send in your logs (see the Sending Logs link in my sig).

Message 13 of 14
StephenB
Guru

Re: Duo V2 one disk expansion


@lforbes wrote:

 

You mentioned an SSH command? Is there any documentation on connecting via command line? We manage Linux servers so I could probably figure it out. It is just time otherwise re-copying back 2TB of data after a factory reset. 


https://www.readynas.com/?cat=36  You'll want to download the ARM "enable root ssh access" add-on and install it on the NAS.  From there you can use putty (or terminal on a mac).   Log on must be "root", and the password is set to the admin password.

 

But wait for mdgm to look at your logs.  Likely he will send you a PM with more targetted advice. 

Message 14 of 14
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