ReadyNas Nv+ 2, How to useMax storage.

[khyretos]

Hi There.

I am a complete beginner when it comes to NAS so i apoligize for my ignorance beforehand.

I recently got gifted a ReadyNas NV+ 2 (RND4000-200EUS) with 2x 3TB drives.

It currently has RAIDiator 5.3.12 running.

It works and i can connect it to my linux server no problem. My only issue is that it keeps formatting my drives as 1 with 1 as a backup/redundancy. I do not want this.

I want it to give me 1 drive with the max capacity. So 5.4TB of space. I tried setting it to Flex-Raid 0 and when its done with the factory reset it appears as Flex 5, i tried JOBD and it still makes it raid 5, i tried just entering 1 drive in Raid 0 but then it makes an individual drive of each one (which defeats the purpose of what i am trying to achieve). I also have an extra 1TB drive but this makes everything worse because if i factory reset it it appears as 1.8TB (i understand it has to do with how the space is divided in a RAID setup) but this is very frustrating not to mention that each factory reset is as slow as my grandma walking downstairs.

I think that i am doing something wrong here. What do i have to do to make it use all the drives i put in and give me the max amount of space?

Is there a trick to this?

is there a way to do this through SSH directly maybe?

I am at a los, i have scowered through this forum to see what i can find but i have had no luck in making it work as i want.

[khyretos · Accepted solution]

I Solved my issue.

Using the older RAIDar version (4.3.8) did make the process faster but it still made separate drives (using JBOD) but that is ok because i found a solution to my particular case, here is what i have:

So i have 3 drives:

1. 3TB (media-c)
2. 3TB (media-d)
3. 1TB (media-e)

They are all mounted through nfs on my linux server.

i found a way to combine the drive with something called mhddfs. this basically combines my 3 drives into one giving me the max amount of space i want from my media server. using this guide: https://www.tecmint.com/combine-partitions-into-one-in-linux-using-mhddfs/ i guess the only downside is that you cannot controll where the information goes but that does not bother me at all this seems good enough.

Right now i am transfering all media to my nas and i see it transfering at 15-24MiB/sec and i do not know if this is good. i think it should be able to go faster sinca a 7200 drive can give about 80-160MB/s (at least that is what google says)

Can anybody tell me if this is the fastest it can go?. both my devices are connected to a tp link ls1005g (5-port Gigabit Desktop Switch). and the NAS has the green light blinking behind, my server is also blinking green.

If anyone has a better setup please let me know. for now my issue is solved thanks to you guys.

[StephenB]

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@khyretos wrote:

I want it to give me 1 drive with the max capacity. So 5.4TB of space. I tried setting it to Flex-Raid 0 and when its done with the factory reset it appears as Flex 5,

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What version of RAIDar are you using?  I think you need to be using 4.3.8 for this. Then set the RAID level during the ~10 minute window after you do the factory default.

[khyretos]

I am using RAIDar_6.5.0.

I do set the option in there but it just does not listen or maybve i am misunderstanding this. 

I am trying out a different solution and that is to combine the drives into 1 using software in linux called "overlayfs".

I will basically mount all the network drives and use software to combine them into 1, i just want a convenient solution to place data in 1 place, i dont really care in which of the disks it goes as long as it is in the NAS.

maybe you have a sugesiton?

[StephenB]

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@khyretos wrote:

I am using RAIDar_6.5.0.

I do set the option in there but it just does not listen or maybve i am misunderstanding this. 

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I believe the option doesn't work (at least it doesn't for some other older NAS).  So I suggest trying 4.3.8.

[Sandshark]

Your NAS has only one volume, so there is nothing for OverlayFS to combine.  OverlayFS combines (sort of) separately mounted volumes, not physical drives.

I know of no way on an OS5.x system to do what you want other than using RAIDar, so try the older version as @StephenB suggests.

[khyretos · Accepted solution]

I Solved my issue.

Using the older RAIDar version (4.3.8) did make the process faster but it still made separate drives (using JBOD) but that is ok because i found a solution to my particular case, here is what i have:

So i have 3 drives:

1. 3TB (media-c)
2. 3TB (media-d)
3. 1TB (media-e)

They are all mounted through nfs on my linux server.

i found a way to combine the drive with something called mhddfs. this basically combines my 3 drives into one giving me the max amount of space i want from my media server. using this guide: https://www.tecmint.com/combine-partitions-into-one-in-linux-using-mhddfs/ i guess the only downside is that you cannot controll where the information goes but that does not bother me at all this seems good enough.

Right now i am transfering all media to my nas and i see it transfering at 15-24MiB/sec and i do not know if this is good. i think it should be able to go faster sinca a 7200 drive can give about 80-160MB/s (at least that is what google says)

Can anybody tell me if this is the fastest it can go?. both my devices are connected to a tp link ls1005g (5-port Gigabit Desktop Switch). and the NAS has the green light blinking behind, my server is also blinking green.

If anyone has a better setup please let me know. for now my issue is solved thanks to you guys.

[StephenB]

RAID-0 requires all the disks to be the same size, and it looks like yours are not.

However, JBOD is IMO a better choice anyway.  With RAID-0 you lose all your data when any of the three disks fail.  With JBOD you only lose what is on the disk that failed.

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@khyretos wrote:

If anyone has a better setup please let me know.

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Given the relatively low cost of storage, I'd have just purchased an 8 TB Ironwolf or Red Plus, and stored everything one drive.

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@khyretos wrote:

Right now i am transfering all media to my nas and i see it transfering at 15-24MiB/sec and i do not know if this is good. i think it should be able to go faster sinca a 7200 drive can give about 80-160MB/s

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That is slow.  What disks are you using?  Did you check to see if they are SMR?

But I think this might be the result of using mhddfs. 

[Sandshark]

It's unclear to me how mhddfs is creating that large virtual volume.  It appears to be combining drives, not file systems.  But how that would allow the umount capability is unclear.  The developer has, IMHO, really poor documentation.  There is a "how to" without any information as to what it's actually doing.

I recommend you do a little looking into it to make sure you've not created a condition in which the loss of one drive will lose all contents, as would happen with a NAS RAID-0.  I think that all you need to do is be sure that you can also directly access just one of the drives and not get file error.

OverlayFS is clearly combining volumes that have their own separate directory structures.  That results in some limitations and probably slows things down, but it doesn't create a "lose one, lose all" condition.