16Tb max volume limit on TS-420 with 4x6Tb disks Raid5

[jannea]

Hi,

I have a TS-420 which has a limit of 16Tb (found out just now after installation) for max volume size. I had 4 x 3Tb's in there (just couple of Gigs of free space any more) and I changed 4 x 6Tb's during last 4 days. It went without problems, but now when I try to resize the raid size it says I would have 16,767tB which is over the limit.

Is there a way to resize new disks to be 400Gb smaller to fit in the spec? Live or by connecting to PC? If it can be done, do I loose the data? If I just format those and leave some as unallocated, would that work or is the rebuilding raid pack also formatting the disk^?
I assume I can just shut down the machine and insert the 3Tb disks inside and everything should be still there?

[dolbyman]

sorry there is no way to expand the volume with those disks on these old units

(can't even put them in a new unit as the resulting legacy volume has thebsame limitations)

inserting the old disks will also not work work as they have desynced (they were swapped slowly over time)

make sure you have full external backups

[jannea]

backups.. yes, I have heard about those..

So my options are:
-Live with it (money well spent with the new HD's), and continue the fight against low space as have been doing for few years now
-Copy the data to external drive or other NAS and format this to raid10 or 6 for small improvement compared to current 8Tb. I do not understand how that gives me more space, but calculators around the web gives me 11Tb space with these options.
-Purchase newer NAS and use same copy method to reuse these disk there with Raid5

I am just surprised that there is no way to format the disk smaller than its real size it.

Thanks for fast reply dolbyman!

[dolbyman]

when these old NAS were made over a decade ago...disk sizes like that were not around..so nobody thought of making any provisions for it

[jaysona]

Thew TS-420 uses a 32-bit SoC that was released in 2010, at that time a 1TB hard drive was the largest disk available for general consumer purchase.

The 32-bit Soc and OS architecture limit the physical hard disk size as well as the volume size limit. I suspect 4TB sized disks will be the largest size that the NAS will be make use of.

The TS-420 use the same SoC that many consumer home routers use, the NAS is a very basic NAS that was very good for 2010-era storage needs and is not very practical for 2020-era and beyond storage needs.

[jannea]

I ordered a new qnap TS-653D.
Is it stright forward so that I thwrow the 6Tb drives in in the same order and it works like that and I can expand the space after that in the new device?
I bought a device with two extra bays so there is possibility to upgrade space more easily.

[dolbyman]

no..you cannot move the disks with data intact the resulting crippled legacy volume would have the same limitations


you need to start from scratch and restore from backups

[jannea]

Yes, I just remembered the same limitation. OK. I'll get a nas loaner for this task.

Thanks for your advices!!

[dolbyman]

remember to have full external backups at all times..it will save your bacon one day

[alex.glebov]

sorry there is no way to expand the volume with those disks on these old units

(can't even put them in a new unit as the resulting legacy volume has the same limitations)

My question is it POSSIBLE to expand RAID5 partition just up to supported limit?
IDE do not allow it. current size 6Tb (4x2TB drives ) so I am happy to grow up to limit of 16TB, and give up to try get 0.7 TB extra limits.

In other words can I expand RAID partition via ssh say from 6TB to 10TB ?

[dolbyman]

not sure if it would work via SSH ...maybe..try it

best to open a new thread though...closing the thread for necroposting