can a Fantec QB-X8US3R be used as extra space for my NAS

[cmdvale]

good evening all,

I am a proud owner of a qnap TS-419P+ (8TB inside, set in raid 5)
Very happy with it, but i was needing more extra storage space.

Four hours and hours I've read all the item on this forum about port multipliers, external devices, lian li, etc..
As I could not found any lian li external tower available I just bought another item similar.

I've bought a fantec QB-X8US3R 8 bay raid tower with 24tb storage.
I'm planning set it in raid 50 (will get around 18 tb space in 1 volume I think).

I would like to use it as an extra external storage, NOT TO BACKUP THE NAS, but to give me more storage device.
Would also like to have it connected directly to my Windows PC and if possible to my NAS.

A lot of questions now.. sorry..

. first and more important.. does my NAS support this device?? :/
. if so, from what I understood I should first set the raid 50 on the device
. then connect it to the NAS and format it to NTFS (to be able to use it on windows pc also), the NAS should then recognize it as an 1 single external drive (18tb in it, right?)
. can I then access the fantec using the windows PC or through the NAS?

sorry for all this questions,

best regards,

c.v

[cmdvale]

P.S - initially I was going to go for a Experts In Storage Q8 tower expansion (similar to the fantec or lian li) but is not available anymore on the qnap/experts in storage site

[Don]

The best way to see if it supports it is to plug it in.

If you connect it to the NAS then you would access it throught the network via the NAS.

[cmdvale]

thank you for the quick reply

I will do that, I am just waiting for it to be delivered, should receive it this week.

best regards,
c.v

[cmdvale]

update

Well, I think this sata/usb tower is not supported or something wrong is happening

I have received the tower, everything formated in NTFS raid 50 and connected to my pc to test: detected around 16tb of space. working fine

then I tried to connect it to my qnap ts-419p+ using the esate cable and went to the admin page for the setting
. it detects the following setting:
eSataDisk
RAID 50
16766,62GB

[cmdvale]

update

Well, I think this sata/usb tower is not supported or something wrong is happening

I have received the tower, everything formated in NTFS raid 50 and connected to my pc to test: detected around 16tb of space. working fine

then I tried to connect it to my qnap ts-419p+ using the esate cable and went to the admin page for the setting
. it detects the following setting:
eSataDisk
RAID 50
16766,62GB
UNMOUNTED

so, I try to format using the qnap admin page, I try to format in NTFS and it starts to do it and then stops and unit becomes unmounted again.
tried this around 10 times and never completes the formatting process.

from this I conclude that possibly its not compatible.
if anyone has any suggestion, feel free telling me

unit is now directly connected to my pc, connected with usb 3.0 and already receiving some data, so even if it is possible to add it to my qnap anyway that I can do it without loosing the data already inside the fantec?

[Don]

Interesting that it sees it as Raid 50. Any setting on the Fantec to make it just appear as a single drive? What happens if you plug it in via USB. I know that is not speediest way to access but curious how it is seen on the USB.

[cmdvale]

indeed it sees it as raid50 unmounted, but when I tried to format and mount in NTFS using the qnap admin it always always fails and drive becomes unmounted again.. lol
so at this moment the fantec is directly connected to my pc formatted in NTFS and receiving some critical data (receiving very very slowly.. lol).
as soon as this finish I'll try to connect it to the qnap using USB port to see what happens. lol

the main objective of this drive was because my qnap was completely full already and I already had a few external hdds connected to my pc full of data, so I needed more storage..
tought that a tower array in RAID to expand my qnap was ideal, but it seems that I will not be able to use it like that

[P3R]

Have you tried formatting it in the native ext4 instead? That would at least exclude any NTFS-related bug. Going beyond the 16 TB limit may possibly also be an issue?

External storage is mainly intended for backup duties. Using it as storage expansion is normally possible (with limitations) but will never be a great solution.

[cmdvale]

Hi
No, i havent tried to format in the ext4 because I need to be able to connect the drive to my win pc sometimes, so I choosed NTFS.
well, it seems I will have a qnap with few use then.. lol

[apauw]

Late reply, old topic, anyway.

I think it worked fine as is. The QNAP sees it as 16 TB, which is exactly what you expect. The name comes up as RAID 50, but I think that is just a trick of the Fantec box. It just sets the model name, received through a scsi inquiry, to the raid mode it is actually running. Nothing magical. Quite handy actually.

Why it doesn't finish formatting it with NTFS (on the QNAP) I don't know. I expect the ntfs code on the qnap to be a reverse engineered driver or something, not officially blessed by Microsoft. Since this is an unusually big disk (16 TB) it might even be a memory problem with the ntfs driver software on the QNAP.

One would expect formatting it on the Windows PC (with the real Windows) and then moving it to the qnap should work. But two things should be considered:

- Is connecting an NTFS formatted drive to the USB port be recognised as formatted (and available for use)?
- Is connecting an NTFS formatted drive to the eSata port be recognised as formatted (and available for use)?

I think the first one should be yes (have you tried connecting it using USB?).
The second one I can't answer (somebody?), but I expect also yes.

If none of the above two work, then it might be the size of the NTFS formatted disk.
So maybe there is a limit on the size of an NTFS disk qnap can handle (and perfectly fine for Windows).

Just my two cents,

Albert