RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
Have a new RN42800 with drives arriving in the next day or two and want to set it up with X-Raid in Raid5 format. From what I've seen in the Netgear Raid Calculator, it appears the system will set up as Raid 6 costing me a lot of storage space.
Is this true? If so how to you get around the Raid 6 to set up with Raid 5?
Tried posting this earlier but apparently it went off into cyberland.
Yes that is correct, the NAS is cofigured using X-RAID and will have more than 6 drives it will use RAID6 as it's RAID level. X-RAID dynamically changes it's RAID type depending on the number of drives the NAS has. Flex-RAID on the other hand maintains its RAID configuration. So if you intend to have RAID 5 as your configuration then you should use this.
By default, your system’s hard disks are configured into a single X-RAID volume except for models only supporting Flex-RAID (RR4360) but you can change the RAID mode that your NAS is using.
You can now switch from X-RAID to Flex-RAID but changing the RAID level of a volume erases all data. If data is stored on your system, you must back up the data to another storage device before changing the RAID level.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
I'm wondering if the following set-up routine would work for the 428:
1. Install six of the 8TB HGST NAS disks and proceed with normal first set-up: power on/discovery/admin and let the unit configure with X-Raid in Raid 5
2. Change from X-Raid to Flex-Raid
3. Install the remaining two discs and then from the Admin page expand the Flex-Raid volume to include the remaining two disks.
Is this the easiest and fastest way to accomplish this without undue formatting time?
With Flex-RAID formatting, if you want to add disks to expand your storage capacity, you must back up the data to another system, add a disk, reformat the RAID volume, and restore the data to the new RAID volume.
Disks added to a Flex-RAID volume can only be used for protection. They cannot be used for storage (horizontal expansion). You will have to switch back to X-RAID to use the disks as data storage but that will make your RAID Level to RAID 6 and if you will switch back to Flex-RAID a format is again needed to be on RAID 5.
So it will be better to add all the disks once configured, destroy and create a volume with RAID Level 5 as your choice.
Note: Newer firmware has Flex-RAID enhancements if you want read this thread.
Please see the following articles as well regarding expansion
Horizontally Expand a Flex-RAID Volume Horizontal expansion of a Flex-RAID volume is possible, but more complex and less space efficient than expanding an X-RAID volume. In effect, you create a new Flex-RAID volume and ReadyNAS OS uses both the existing and new volumes as parts of the same larger volume. Other configurations are possible, but We recommend expanding the volume by the same number of disks as the original volume; for example, expand a 3-disk RAID 5 Flex-RAID volume by adding three disks.
To horizontally expand a Flex-RAID volume:
1. Add disks to the ReadyNAS, if necessary.
2. Log in to the local admin page.
3. Select System > Volumes.
4. Select the volume to expand.
5. Select the unallocated disks to add to the volume. When you select disks additional buttons appear on the volume.
6. Select the Expand button. A Window opens asking you to verify you want to expand the volume.
7. Select the Yes button. The volume expands immediately, but requires a resync, which starts immediately. The volume display includes a resync progress bar.
Thank you @StephenB for pointing this out, I have requested for the article to be updated. It is somehow outdated not incorrect.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
With your 8x8GB with RAID5 you will get 56GB of the 64GB, while the RAID6 solution will render 48GB usable space for you.
However you could see the loss of usable space as some kind of cost for insurance against failure of the complete array and hence complete loss of all data on it.
With RAID5 one of the 8 disks can safely fail and your array will still work in a degraded mode until you replace the one broken disk with a healthy one. Should a second drive fail before the repair your whole data array would be gone.
With RAID6 even 2 of 8 disks could safely fail and your data array would be still function in degraded mode. The status of the array would return to healthy after you would have installed the replacements, finally
With the increasing number of drives in an array the probability of one of them failing is just increasing. Therefore NETGEAR's policy to automatically configure an array of >=6 as RAID6 has a good reason and seems to be very wise.
Depending on the importance of the data you are going to put on your array you might want to stick with RAID6, though.
So it will be better to add all the disks once configured, destroy and create a volume with RAID Level 5 as your choice.
Despite the wrong information the kb article, this is the fastest way to get what you want. Do the normal factory install with all disks in place. Then immediately switch to flexraid, destroy the volume and create a new RAID-5 volume. There's no need to wait for the initial volume to resync.
Though it is worth considering just going with the default dual redundancy XRAID when you have that many disks. One option is to get fewer (but possibly large) disks initially, and leave some slots open for future expansion. For instance, 6x10TB would give you 50 TB of single-redundancy storage, and you then have the option of expanding to 70 TB single-redundancy or 60 TB dual-redundancy later on.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
>>With your 8x8GB with RAID5 you will get 56GB of the 64GB, while the RAID6 solution will render 48GB usable space for you.
I was using the Netgear Raid Calculator which shows 8x8 in X-Raid as 43.6 and Flex-Raid Level 5 at 50.8 which to me is losing an additional drive or that the "extra" protection costs the same as one 8TB HGST NAS drive.
That's just too costly for my purposes, these are media files and while I wouldn't want to lose them, the extra protection for two disk failures is too high.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
Sorry for the confusion. For simplicity I was using TebiBytes while Netgear uses true TeraBytes in its calculator. Here is a link to shed a light on the difference.
I was using the Netgear Raid Calculator which shows 8x8 in X-Raid as 43.6 and Flex-Raid Level 5 at 50.8 which to me is losing an additional drive or that the "extra" protection costs the same as one 8TB HGST NAS drive.
There are two different units used for disk space. Manufacturers use TB (1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes), most operating systems use TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes). Unfortunately most software (including ReadyNAS) mislabel the TiB (calling it TB). This mislabeling didn't matter much in the ancient times when 2 GB was a large disk. But the difference today (with 8-12 TB drives) is considerable.
8x8 RAID-5 gives you 56 TB (ignoring a bit of overhead), which is the same as ~50.9 TiB. 8x8 RAID-6 gives you 48 TB, which is the same as ~43.7 TiB. The Netgear RAID calculator does account for the overhead I generally ignore, so it's numbers are a slightly smaller.
...which to me is losing an additional drive or that the "extra" protection costs the same as one 8TB HGST NAS drive.
That's just too costly for my purposes, these are media files and while I wouldn't want to lose them, the extra protection for two disk failures is too high.
That is your call of course.
Either way you should consider your future storage needs. Horizontal expansion (filling empty slots) is considerably cheaper per TB gained than vertical expansion (replacing working disks with larger ones). So filling all the slots when you purchase is usually not the best long-term strategy.
For example, 8 TB HGST disks cost about $250 (US amazon pricing), while the 10 TB version costs about $350. 12 TB are about $430.
6x10TB would cost $2100 up front and give you 50 TB of RAID-5 storage. 8x8TB costs $2000, and gives you 56 TB of storage. That's $100 less up front, and of course more space up front.
But if you need to expand your NAS to 60 TB later, then the total costs change. Expanding 6x10TB to 60 TB costs you $350 for one more 10 TB disk - 60 TB for $2450 total. And you'd still have one more slot to expand again - giving you 70 TB for $2800.
Expanding 8x8TB to 60 TB would require replacing two 8 TB drives with 12 TB models - $860 at current prices or 60 TB for $2860 total. And going to 68 TB after that would require you to spend another $860 (replacing two more 8 TB drives with 12 TB models) - 68 TB for $3720.
So if your media library is growing, then you should consider starting with 10 TB or possibly even 12 TB disks, and leave some empty slots for future expansion.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
UPDATE
I installed the 8x8 HGST drive set and when through first set-up on the 428 this morning. As expected the drives all lit up and the unit booted and I discovered it in ReadyCLOUD. All good so far.
When I clicked on the gear on the volume destroy was greyed out. The unit shipped with 6.7.1. I upgraded it to 6.9.3 to match the rest of the units and set the pass word and ReadyCLOUD. On reboot the Destroy was available however when I tried it, it failed.
Perhaps it was too soon (less than 1% resync.)
Wed Apr 25 2018 7:28:03
Volume: Volume data deletion failed.
I did get a message that I was trying to change from X-raid and then I elected to cancel and now it looks like I'm back to resyncing for the next 21 hours or so. (Seems pretty fast but this is my first 400 series unit). So once the volume is sync'd should I try it again?
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
What you could try is powering down, and removing all but one disk. Then do a factory install from the boot menu.
That should complete without resyncing, and you should be able to switch to flexraid and destroy the volume right away. Then hot-insert the remaining drives, format them, and then create the RAID-5 volume you want.
Re: RN42800 new install with 8 HGST NAS 8TB Drives how to set up as X-Raid with Raid 5
Stephen's last post is probably the fastest and best way to acheive your raid 5 goal.
That said, I have a 528x and 8x 8tb drives, I would highly recommend staying the default raid 6, for all the reasons already posted previously above and more.
The more drives you have, the more time it takes to resync/rebuild/expand, this makes raid 5 extremely suseptical to multiple drive failures during those resync periods.
The choice is your of course, but if you continue with raid 5, you must understand that raid 5 will not save your data if you happen to have multiple drives fail.
*YOU* must ensure you have up to date back ups of your data, on a separate device, and ideally in multiple locations.
RAID of any kind is never a replacement for back ups. Drive or hardware failures, software failures, user failures, not to mention virus/ransomware, accidential deletion, fire, floods, physical theft, any other scenario can deprive you of your data if you do not have backups.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck if you continue with raid 5.
