Volume larger than 16TB (859)

[dwessels]

I started a previous thread, but it was locked...

I am wondering if it is possible to have a volume larger than 16TB yet?
If not, will you be able to soon? I would like to put 8 x 3TB drive in my QNAP.

I did a search in the forum already and didn't find my answer.
Some places said that you needed 3.4, but everywhere else it says that 16TB is the limit.
*If there is a previous thread, maybe you can point me to it?

A response other than search for it would help.

Thanks again for all of your help

[onlyalex]

Hi dwessels

If you have firmware 3.4 an volume larger than 16TB is supported. The current supported 3TB harddrives can be found here http://www.qnap.com/pro_compatibility.asp

There is however two notes on the list that you need to take into account

Note14
To use these models with QNAP NAS, please upgrade the NAS firmware to v3.4.0 or later. A disk volume can only be expanded to maximum 16TB by online RAID capacity expansion or adding hard drives. Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB.

This is important if you already have drives in your device. If you setup an new unit och add all drives for the first time you should be just fine.

Note15
Not applicable to NVR models & TS-509 Pro.

This speaks for itself. Reason for this if i remember correct is that currently the 509 bios does not support it.

Best regards.

[dwessels]

Thanks!

Makes sense now.

Really appreciate the help.

[Vladmax]

Note14

To use these models with QNAP NAS, please upgrade the NAS firmware to v3.4.0 or later. A disk volume can only be expanded to maximum 16TB by online RAID capacity expansion or adding hard drives. Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB.

This is important if you already have drives in your device. If you setup an new unit och add all drives for the first time you should be just fine.
Best regards.

I have 859Pro model with 8 x2TB drives installed, with latest firmware available. Is it possible to expand the volume by replacing drives one by one with 3TB drives? Will it automatically pickup drive size and assign it correctly?

[P3R]

@ Vladmax,
No, as it says in the last sentence of Note 11 in the compatility list: "Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB."

Since a volume of 8*3 TB disks will go well past the 16 TB limit that won't work. You'll have to backup all data, setup the volume with 3 TB disks from scratch and then restore your backup.

Edit: spelling.

[harfes]

Well, everybody has of course some external usb-drives for storing about 13TB somewhere...LOL
On one side we can be lucky now that 3TB hdd's are supported - on the other side we have for expansion to deal with a lot of data external (with the risk of data-loss). What's the reason for this? Why is the online-expansion not possible? Is there a workaround?

Hartmut

[Q]

if you have 13TB without a backup you should be worried anyway the need of a backup has nothing to do with the nas or its capabilities, if you care about your data. yes it's expensive (for a private user at least, for a company it shouldn't be an issue) but that's something you always need to consider already before your buying decision (i.e. for example a second nas for backup).

[harfes]

Hi Q,

the NAS IS our Backup-System! So I have to store the backups on another place while updating the NAS. But that was of course not my main question: why isn't it possible to online-expand the system to more than 16TB? I'm looking for a technical explanation (if there's one)...

Hartmut

[Q]

ok i see

it's a technical limitation of ext4 (resp. e2fsprogs/resize2fs) afaik, i don't know much about it myself but schumaku wrote in another thread:

When you try to migrate your RAID using smaller disk drives to 3 TB ones, you succeed - but the RAID won't be built after the first reboot - due to bad metadata and/or superblock that requires an update.

i guess qnap is surely working on a solution to solve it (if at all possible) in future.

and because somebody claimed in another thread synology can already do it: it's NOT completely true. volumes below 16tb created with dsm 3.0 or earlier CANNOT be expanded >16tb. only volumes created newly with at least 3.1 (available since only 2 months) can be expanded to >16tb later. that solution qnap can probably realize soon as well, but it doesn't solve your problem. so they have exactly the same issue. i guess everybody has currently exactly the same problems regarding >16tb resize (unless they used another OS or filesystem already before which maybe doesn't have this limitation, like XFS afaik, but has other disadvantages and issues).

[proxy2222]

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my TS-639 pro with 6 * 1.5 TB in RAID 5 to 6 * 3 TB in RAID 5 by using RAID capacity expansion.

I understand that there is a limit on 16 TB but does that 16 TB include all (6) the disks or only the disks that are actually available (5, raid 5 = 6-1) ?

If the 16 TB only included the actual available disks, I should have no problems upgrading - as (5 * 3) < 16 TB.
If the 16 TB limit includes all the disks, I cannot upgrade using expansion - as (6 * 3) > 16 TB.

So does anybody know if I can upgrade using expansion or not ?

Many thanks!

[ogre01]

So to get around the 16TB issue is to obtain all 3TB drives now, basically fully load the system and start fresh. What about after that? Can one do online expansion when 4TB drives come around? Or this shortcoming will force another clean install?

Or is simply a clean install now all that's needed and then can expand beyond this 16TB later, of course all this using the latest stuff.

So for example, on a 879, have 6x 3TB which is more then the 16TB limit, should clean install just fine with full space usage. Can I then later add two more 3TB drives to expand size or need to offload the data and clean install?

Note14
To use these models with QNAP NAS, please upgrade the NAS firmware to v3.4.0 or later. A disk volume can only be expanded to maximum 16TB by online RAID capacity expansion or adding hard drives. Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB.

That note seems to indicate that one will not be able to add the two drives later, but I've read it so many times now, the passage has ceased to convey meaning anymore.

[P3R]

So to get around the 16TB issue is to obtain all 3TB drives now, basically fully load the system and start fresh.

Yes.

Can one do online expansion when 4TB drives come around?

Unfortunately my crystal ball was shattered yesterday so I can't tell you if the issue preventing capacity expansion today will be resolved when 4 TB disks become available. I think you'll have to try to predict the future yourself.

So for example, on a 879, have 6x 3TB which is more then the 16TB limit...

6*3 TB would only give a volume that is larger than 16 TB in RAID 0 or JBOD-configurations, and neither of those can be migrated or expanded later anyway.

A 6-disk RAID 5 would give you a data volume of 15 TB but of course adding disks to that is also impossible as the volume would then become larger than 16 TB.

...should clean install just fine with full space usage. Can I then later add two more 3TB drives to expand size...

No.

It's not only passing the 16 TB limit that is a problem. The last sentence of Note 11 says: "Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB". So when having passed the 16 TB limit, any expansion is out of the question with the current tools.

[AssetBurned]

Hi

one thing I can't understand is why companies doesn't prepare for situations like this. There are technologies out there to use 2 hard disks as a stripped media and from the SATA pint of view it looks like just one hard disk. So It was quiet easy to reach the 16TB limit even a while back when the 1.5TB disc came out or 2TB discs where available.

But from what I understood from this posting:

it's a technical limitation of ext4 (resp. e2fsprogs/resize2fs) afaik, i don't know much about it myself but schumaku wrote in another thread:

When you try to migrate your RAID using smaller disk drives to 3 TB ones, you succeed - but the RAID won't be built after the first reboot - due to bad metadata and/or superblock that requires an update.

i guess qnap is surely working on a solution to solve it (if at all possible) in future.

It is more a problem of the file system itself, not of anything else. If so we have some kind of trouble here since changing the filesystem on a running and fully loaded RAID... yeah that will be fun.

cu assetburned

[hans2011]

I´m following the thread and have a question ... kindly help.

I´ve a QNAP TS-859 Pro+ on firmware 3.5.0 B0815T.

Once I installed 4x 3TB discs Hitachi HDS723030ALA640 MKAO
creating one RAID5 at the beginning.
After a while I added another 4 discs of the same kind.
Tried to extend the RAID5, getting a message taht only volume up to 16 TB is supported. I ignored that and now all 16 discs are in the RAID5 but the capacity unchanged.

In this post I read now that volume size > 16 TB is possible. How?
My RAID5 size ist still 8313.05 GB - how come`?

Will I need to re-create the whole RAID5 (with all 8 discs) to get this volume size??? If so, nop but just wanna be sure!!!

Your feedback is highly appreciated.

Thnk

[schumaku]

Unless I'm wrong, there is no migration option to pass the 16 TB volume size limit. No other way than backup, and recreate the new RAID from scratch, and restore your data.