How do you remove a single drive? (Non-Raid)

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Alex25000
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How do you remove a single drive? (Non-Raid)

Post by Alex25000 »

Hello,
I'm trying to figure out how the safely detach feature works and found that thread interesting, thought I don't beleive i'm in the exact same situation.

For several years, I have used the TS-451A (QTS 4.5.4.1723) with 3 Disks, all declared as Static Single Volumes. (No storage pool). I have no flexibility with the space but i'm find with it.
I have a separate backup.

I made some trials and it turns out that i can safely detatch any of the disks/Single Static Volume/RAID group (not sure about the right terminology...), and i can place it in any bay of any NAS. The NAS will detect it and recover it (with the option "attach and recover the storage pool" in Disks/VJBOD). So far so good.

Now I'm thinking of using a storage pool as i understood it's a "cleaner" set up, gives more flexibility and features such as Snapshots.
I tried to reinstall a disk under a storage pool this time (thick volume).
However, i notice that the option "Safely detache" is no more present when I select the volume (in Storage/Snapshot -> "Volume name" -> Manage -> Action).
I can only detage the whole pool (in Storage/Snapshot -> "Storage Pool 1" -> Manage -> Action -> Safely Detach Pool.
So I assume that if i set all my 3 drives as 3 thick volumes under the Storage Pool 1, I won't be able to detach one safely, and more importantly not be able to recover one out of three on another NAS. It will detach all the disks in the Pool.
Is that how it's supposed to work or am I missing something ?
Does it mean that In my case I should create 3 Storage Pools with one disk each ?
Or am I making a bad use of Pools and i should just stick with the Static Single Volumes as before?

I know i'm probably not making use of all the features and flexibility offered by the NAS but I'm not a NAS expert and I feel more confortable keeping it as versatile as I can.

Also, unrelated question, any data about the performance loss between a Static Single Volume and Thick Volume?
Today I'm at around 80-100MB/s, bottlenecked by my 1GbE connection. and I didn't see much difference in practice.
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OneCD
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Re: How do you remove a single drive? (Non-Raid)

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* topic split from viewtopic.php?f=25&t=150727 *

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P3R
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Re: How do you remove a single drive? (Non-Raid)

Post by P3R »

Alex25000 wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:39 pm I made some trials and it turns out that i can safely detatch any of the disks/Single Static Volume/RAID group (not sure about the right terminology...), and i can place it in any bay of any NAS. The NAS will detect it and recover it (with the option "attach and recover the storage pool" in Disks/VJBOD). So far so good.
Why are you detaching and inserting disks? I almost never have the need to replace disks unless they've failed and when they've failed there's no need to detach the old disk before removal.
Now I'm thinking of using a storage pool as i understood it's a "cleaner" set up, gives more flexibility and features such as Snapshots.
Do you really want/need snapshots? I guess the reason that you don't use RAID (the normally recommended storage configuration in a NAS) is to have more storage space available but snapshots will eat away from your storage as well.
So I assume that if i set all my 3 drives as 3 thick volumes under the Storage Pool 1, I won't be able to detach one safely, and more importantly not be able to recover one out of three on another NAS. It will detach all the disks in the Pool.
Correct.

Having all disks in a single storage pool is similar to what Qnap call a JBOD configuration, all disks are used to build a virtual volume. This give you a single contiguous volume which is nice but as either disk fail all data will be lost so it's at the price of being less reliable than single disks.
Does it mean that In my case I should create 3 Storage Pools with one disk each ?
It depend on what you want. If you want something similar to what you have now but have access to snapshots and storage pool features, this is what you need to do. It sound clumsy and complicated though.
I know i'm probably not making use of all the features and flexibility offered by the NAS but I'm not a NAS expert and I feel more confortable keeping it as versatile as I can.
A non-RAID configuration is limiting in itself. It's more prone to downtime than a redundant configuration and it limit your flexibility and possibilities. You have no easy way to expand your storage while preserving data on the NAS like you can with redundant disk configurations (RAID 1 or higher levels). It also have lower performance but most of the times it make no difference when gigabit networking is the bottleneck.
Also, unrelated question, any data about the performance loss between a Static Single Volume and Thick Volume?
Today I'm at around 80-100MB/s, bottlenecked by my 1GbE connection. and I didn't see much difference in practice.
It's typically not noticeable on gigabit networking.
RAID have never ever been a replacement for backups. Without backups on a different system (preferably placed at another site), you will eventually lose data!

A non-RAID configuration (including RAID 0, which isn't really RAID) with a backup on a separate media protects your data far better than any RAID-volume without backup.

All data storage consists of both the primary storage and the backups. It's your money and your data, spend the storage budget wisely or pay with your data!
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