(Legacy) Volumes, Storage Pools, raid groups and whatnot

[TomasF]

So, I upgraded my TS-1079 Pro to QTS 4, have destroyed my old volumes, and am in the process of initializing a new Storage Pool. Since it'll be a long wait until it's done, I took some time to look around in help files and on this forum to look for some information on how volumes, storage pools, raid groups, etc relate to each other.

I can't really find any explanation of for example the difference between the volumes and storage pools, strengths and weaknesses of each, or use cases for either (other than the 16TB limit thing). Do Volumes still have a role with the introduction of Storage Pools, or are they just included as a matter of legacy support? I noticed my volume from 3.x was listed as "Legacy Volume" somewhere in the gui after the upgrade. Are all Volumes legacy volumes?

My understanding is that with the traditional volumes, if my device was to die a horrible death, I could attach the drives to a machine running linux with the necessary raid tools etc and still mount the volume and recover the data. Is this still the case with Storage Pools and Raid groups?

I think these are important questions that ought to be addressed somewhere, if not in the help file then at least in these forums.

Other than that, so far I'm pretty impressed with QTS 4 so far, from a configuration and monitoring perspective

[Wildcat_1]

Tomas
Did you ever find any more info around this ? I too am setting up a new NAS (870 pro) and was also looking for info showing differences and usage cases/pros & cons of Volumes vs Storage pools, why you should use either or both etc

Thanks

[Murbella7]

Me too. I just posted as similar query on an adjacent thread. I want to create a 2x4TB pair (from 4x2Tb drives), running in a mirror Raid config (Raid 1?).

[pwilson]

So, I upgraded my TS-1079 Pro to QTS 4, have destroyed my old volumes, and am in the process of initializing a new Storage Pool. Since it'll be a long wait until it's done, I took some time to look around in help files and on this forum to look for some information on how volumes, storage pools, raid groups, etc relate to each other.

I can't really find any explanation of for example the difference between the volumes and storage pools, strengths and weaknesses of each, or use cases for either (other than the 16TB limit thing). Do Volumes still have a role with the introduction of Storage Pools, or are they just included as a matter of legacy support? I noticed my volume from 3.x was listed as "Legacy Volume" somewhere in the gui after the upgrade. Are all Volumes legacy volumes?

My understanding is that with the traditional volumes, if my device was to die a horrible death, I could attach the drives to a machine running linux with the necessary raid tools etc and still mount the volume and recover the data. Is this still the case with Storage Pools and Raid groups?

I think these are important questions that ought to be addressed somewhere, if not in the help file then at least in these forums.

Other than that, so far I'm pretty impressed with QTS 4 so far, from a configuration and monitoring perspective

Review the (badly titled) QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 will tell you how to convert. Storage Pools are basically LVM Volumes.

[storageman]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=qnap+ ... B645%3B318

This pick helps explain.

[Wildcat_1]

Patrick
So, want to make sure i understand this correctly. On my old 659 pro there was no option for Volumes & Pools to this level so of course new in the 870 pro for me. Therefore on the 659 Pro all I ever had was the storage pool and that was it. I connected via AFP and then mapped any particular sub directory needed by each machine.

My understanding of the QNAP Volume / Storage Pool equation is that the Volume basically segregates the storage further and in some cases (depending on your need) gives you the opportunity of limiting access further by volume. In other words rather than traditionally having a pool/raid group of disks and then having users with perms to either the entire group of individual folders, volumes allows you to setup areas/sub sets of the overall storage pool for sharing as a whole. In other words you could have 10 TB RAID for example and then have 2 x 1TB volumes (sales, admin for this example) limited to certain groups and of course a sub set of total storage, Is that understanding correct ?

That brings me to my last observation and question which is that if this understanding above is correct then Volumes are elective and not necessarily needed in all situations. From a home use perspective (media server, document storage, video & photo backup) I am looking at what usage case a volume could benefit over simple folder/user management and that is where I am getting stuck as I cannot see one

My RAID6 group did complete build last night and as I mentioned I set this up using 'New Storage Pool' not using the wizard. This means I do have a storage group and currently no volume. Now I am wondering if I create a volume(s) before migrating data from the 659 pro.

Please let me know if I am missing something here and thanks again for your help

Also am I right in thinking that going the way I did and creating a storage pool I have the best chance of expansion. Firstly I have the 21.6Tb of space (8x 4TB HGST) which would not be allowed or in turn would be limited to the 16Tb under volumes ?

Thanks

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=qnap+ ... B645%3B318

This pick helps explain.

[Wildcat_1]

Ok seems like you are forced to create a volume on QTS4 (different of course from my old 659 Pro). If that is the case then my question now is, if I choose Thick provisioning and set to Max I end up with a 21.74Tb volume, will that still allow me to expand (RAID expansion) should I upgrade the disks and storage pool later ? My thought is that the way it would work is currently set volume to 21.74TB (max) on my current 8x 4TB RAID 6. Then if for example I decide to upgrade to 6TB drives at some point in the future, I would go through the storage pool/drive/raid expansion and swap in the new disks. RAID would then expand as designed leaving me with more space but same size volume (21.74Tb). I then go into Volumes and have the choice of increasing the volume then. Does that sound right ?

Lastly, any disadvantage of setting volume to Max under thick provisioning ?

Thanks

[pwilson]

Ok seems like you are forced to create a volume on QTS4 (different of course from my old 659 Pro). If that is the case then my question now is, if I choose Thick provisioning and set to Max I end up with a 21.74Tb volume, will that still allow me to expand (RAID expansion) should I upgrade the disks and storage pool later ? My thought is that the way it would work is currently set volume to 21.74TB (max) on my current 8x 4TB RAID 6. Then if for example I decide to upgrade to 6TB drives at some point in the future, I would go through the storage pool/drive/raid expansion and swap in the new disks. RAID would then expand as designed leaving me with more space but same size volume (21.74Tb). I then go into Volumes and have the choice of increasing the volume then. Does that sound right ?

Lastly, any disadvantage of setting volume to Max under thick provisioning ?

Thanks

I can't help you. Your understanding of this is non-existent.
There is no "set to Max" with Thick provisioning.

Your old NAS does not support Storage Pools at all.

Your old NAS uses "Home" Firmware, and the "Home" version of the manual: QNAP Turbo NAS User Manual (Home) 4.1
Your new NAS uses "SMB" Firmware, and the "SMB" version of the manual: QNAP Turbo NAS User Manual (SMB) 4.1

You will find no reference to Storage Pools in the QNAP Turbo NAS User Manual (Home) 4.1 manual, because your old NAS does not support them.

The terminology used in your questions suggests that you do not understand the difference between the two. While I am happy to provide assistance and answer questions, I am not an educational resource for you. You have two different NAS devices running under different Firmware, with separate manuals for each. Please review both manuals thoroughly, so that we have a common point of reference to work with for your questions.

There have been plenty of reference documents provided for you within this message thread. Please take the time to review them. You can not expand your "legacy" Storage Volume under SMB Firmware, so you will need to convert to Storage Pools sooner or later, I'm merely suggesting that you create Storage Pools on the new NAS immediately, and copy the data from the old NAS to the new one via your network. (After your data is safely copied over, you can wipe the original NAS, and re-set it up as a "Backup Destination" for the new one. NAS-to-NAS backups are by far the easiest method of doing a NAS backup).

Have you reviewed QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 yet?

[Wildcat_1]

Patrick
I think the issue here is a couple fold 1) being that we are starting at 2 different places. You are right that if you use the Wizard to setup a new QNAP then you are presented with volume creation as well and therefore have to choose thick or thin. However what I said is equally correct. If you go into storage manager (not using wizard) then you DO have the option of just creating a storage pool without creating a volume therefore are never presented with thick vs thin. This last method was the one I chose. Therefore because of that latter method it IS possible to have a storage pool on your system without a volume, this is where the confusion started. It appeared (based on former knowledge of the 659 pro) that this then would be good enough to get started using the unit however as I learned from that point you MUST create a volume to access and use the data storage pool you just created. If you were forced to create at least 1 volume as part of the manual storage pool creation this conversation would have become a moot point because it doesn't that is what led to the confusion and led me to believe you had a choice of storage pool only vs volume. This is clearly not documented well as there are a number of threads on this forum all asking 'what is the difference ?' as if there is a real choice to only use a storage pool without a volume, which unless I am missing something is not even a choice. 2) if you go into volumes and new volume there IS an option to select Set To Max with thick provisioning, I just did it on the volume I created a few minutes ago.

So when all is said and done, part of this confusion is due to the differences between the 659 Pro and 870 Pro which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. The other was caused by very little documentation on a) what is the difference (in the QNAP iteration) of Volumes vs Storage Pools with details on how they can be invoked and why/when they are needed (not specifically called out in the docs and certainly something that can be invoked separately from the wizard). There is also not a lot of documentation that clears up the limitations of volumes overcome by storage pool (except thankfully covered in this forum).

I do have the volume set at this time and I do intend to now start the NAS to NAS backup of 659 Pro to 870 Pro which I am sure will take some time. At that point I will upgrade the 659 Pro fully, rather than just leaving it at 4 with original format, blow away any data on that which I don't need and use it as the backup for the critical data hosted on the main 870 Pro.

Think that does it apart from at some point expanding the storage pool on the 870 pro with bigger disks still

I do appreciate the help you have offered as it has been useful. With that said and to be honest, the documentation here by Qnap had not helped that initial piece that myself and seemingly others had regarding volumes vs pools and the pieces I mentioned above otherwise I and others would not have posted.

Thanks again

[claudiobon]

I'm not sure if this is correct forum but I've a problem with my QNAP TS-869 Pro

I'm coming from old firmware 3.x where I've created a RAID-5 volume with 3 disk 2TB.
Now I've updated firmware to 4.1, but my NAS have not any storage pool.

Now I simply need to expand space from 3 to 4 disk: adding another 2TB disk I cannot find any way to expand my RAID.

I only see options to create another storage pool where I cannot add my old volume without destroying my data...

There is a way to convert old volume to new storage pool without losing data?
... I've found not in your knowledge base

Optionally, can I downgrade firmware to old release 3.8 from actual 4.1 with out losing data?
In this release sure adding new disks was very simpler than now

Thank you

[pwilson]

I'm not sure if this is correct forum but I've a problem with my QNAP TS-869 Pro

I'm coming from old firmware 3.x where I've created a RAID-5 volume with 3 disk 2TB.
Now I've updated firmware to 4.1, but my NAS have not any storage pool.

Now I simply need to expand space from 3 to 4 disk: adding another 2TB disk I cannot find any way to expand my RAID.

I only see options to create another storage pool where I cannot add my old volume without destroying my data...

There is a way to convert old volume to new storage pool without losing data?
... I've found not in your knowledge base

Optionally, can I downgrade firmware to old release 3.8 from actual 4.1 with out losing data?
In this release sure adding new disks was very simpler than now

Thank you

.

Have you reviewed QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 yet? (You can not expand a "Legacy" volume in an SMB NAS. You need to convert to Storage Pools first. Please review this Tutorial.

[claudiobon]

I'm not sure if this is correct forum but I've a problem with my QNAP TS-869 Pro

I'm coming from old firmware 3.x where I've created a RAID-5 volume with 3 disk 2TB.
Now I've updated firmware to 4.1, but my NAS have not any storage pool.

Now I simply need to expand space from 3 to 4 disk: adding another 2TB disk I cannot find any way to expand my RAID.

I only see options to create another storage pool where I cannot add my old volume without destroying my data...

There is a way to convert old volume to new storage pool without losing data?
... I've found not in your knowledge base

Optionally, can I downgrade firmware to old release 3.8 from actual 4.1 with out losing data?
In this release sure adding new disks was very simpler than now

Thank you

.

Have you reviewed QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 yet? (You can not expand a "Legacy" volume in an SMB NAS. You need to convert to Storage Pools first. Please review this Tutorial.

...sorry but your link [url=http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lang=en-us&sn=9501] is broken...

[claudiobon]

So no "soft" migration is possible in any way? I need to buy another NAS/USB disk to backup it...I have 4 TB of data to backup!

Also any app installed will be lost, and I must reinstall everything?

Very good!

[pwilson]

I'm not sure if this is correct forum but I've a problem with my QNAP TS-869 Pro

I'm coming from old firmware 3.x where I've created a RAID-5 volume with 3 disk 2TB.
Now I've updated firmware to 4.1, but my NAS have not any storage pool.

Now I simply need to expand space from 3 to 4 disk: adding another 2TB disk I cannot find any way to expand my RAID.

I only see options to create another storage pool where I cannot add my old volume without destroying my data...

There is a way to convert old volume to new storage pool without losing data?
... I've found not in your knowledge base

Optionally, can I downgrade firmware to old release 3.8 from actual 4.1 with out losing data?
In this release sure adding new disks was very simpler than now

Thank you

.

Have you reviewed QNAP Tutorial: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 yet? (You can not expand a "Legacy" volume in an SMB NAS. You need to convert to Storage Pools first. Please review this Tutorial.

...sorry but your link is broken...

Try: How to completely upgrade your NAS from QTS 3.8 to QTS 4.0 instead.

[Ale Kassimatis]

Dear felas, just a question, I am new on qnap. Does TS-431 support Storage Pool? After the initialization I only can see volumes. Thank you for your help!