Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

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googleg
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Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by googleg »

Hi all,
I have a 2-bay TS-251+, on which I recently had to replace a disk that died.

The NAS previous was fitted with 2 x 4 TB disks. The new disk I installed is 6 TB. I am now running with 1 x 4 TB and 1 x 6TB in RAID 1 and therefore I only have as available space up to the capacity of the smaller disk i.e. 4 TB.

All is good but now I am considering upgrading the second disk also to 6 TB and I am wondering how will I be able to expand the storage pool to benefit from the full capacity of the new disks.

The procedure says I need to replace the disks 1 by 1, as explained here:
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial ... ty-upgrade

...but in my case, I already have 1 disk that was replace, so how is this supposed to work ?

Do I simply need to go through the procedure, choose the smaller disk and click on "change", then after the RAID resync is over will I be automatically presented with the "expand capacity" button?
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dolbyman
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by dolbyman »

You just replace the other disk and then expand you pool/volume or static volume (whatever you have setup) it's pretty straight forward
googleg
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by googleg »

Thank you so if I understand you well I do not have to go through the official procedure from QNAP ? Simply pulling out the old disk and replacing with a bigger disk will be enough ?
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dolbyman
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by dolbyman »

On non legacy volumes on CAT2 devices, there is "no procedure" to follow for the disk swap

After the swap, mentioned process above must be followed (as static or pool is still unknown)
googleg
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by googleg »

Sorry you lost me, what is a legacy volume and CAT2 device ?
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dolbyman
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by dolbyman »

Legacy volume is when you moved disks from a CAT1 device (old devices like a TS-212/TS-219) over to a new CAT2 device (like your 251+).

These Legacy volumes are limited in functionality and expand-ability
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Blackbird72
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity - Legacy Volume(?)

Post by Blackbird72 »

Hi Forum,

I have a similar problem. The storage of the RAID 1 volume cannot be expanded. My suspicion is that I "still" have a legacy volume, since no storage pool is displayed in the user interface.

1. How do I know if it's a legacy volume? :shock:

Background:

>> 5 years ago I equipped a TS-253Pro with 2x3TB running a RAID 1. Due to the "backplane issue" (disk in bay 2 was restarted again and again), one disk failed and was replaced by a 6 TB (3 TB lay idle). Only then was the "backplane issue" identified and the NAS quickly replaced with a TS-464eU by inserting the disks into the new NAS. After a rebuild everything went as desired. Including all authorizations, settings and releases. The SSD slots and Bay 3 and Bay 4 are still unused.

Since I will soon have to store a large amount of important data there as well, I had planned to expand the storage within the existing RAID 1. Due to the price-performance ratio, there were even two 14 TB Exos X16...
The 3TB disk was replaced with the first 14TB, but the expand volume feature mentioned in the forum was greyed out. I temporarily put the second 14TB in Bay 3 and use it as a "spare".

Current configuration:
Bay 1: 14TB, Bay 2: 6TB, Bay 3: 14TB
Even now I can't find a way to use the additional unused memory...

According to the instructions, QNAP recommends replacing legacy volumes with a newer volume (I would tend towards the static one for performance reasons).
In the future I would like to use the two 14 TB in 2 bays and the "old" disks in external housings for backups.

2. Is there a way to do this without losing settings, permissions, etc.? :'

Theoretically, I could put the old 3GB disk back into the RAID, rebuild it again and install the two 14 TB in parallel in bays 3 and 4 to form a new RAID 1 (with storage pool, etc.). It would be important for me to accept the settings and not have much time for my interventions - if several rebuilds are necessary, this is currently uncritical.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Greetings

Blackbird
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dolbyman
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Re: Upgrading disks and expanding RAID capacity

Post by dolbyman »

Already replied to you here (before you created this post)

https://forum.qnapclub.de/thread/61502- ... post468751
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