Raid management QTS hero (ZFS)

[Sylrob]

Good Morning,

Anyone heard from QNAP when it will possible to extend an existing RAID (add drive) and also be able to migrate a RAID ?.

I started my Storage pool 1 on my TVS-H1288X with only 1 SSD drive for my application installation 444 days ago, I was on the assumption that QNAP will release a QTS hero version with those option enable sooner, so I'm a little bit nervous now, my SSD life left is 63%. I know I'm the ONLY one to blame, but before doing a backup of all system config and reinstall all my app on a brand new storage pool, if those feature come before 2024 I can wait a little more, anyway if my system crash I'll have to reinstall all my application, in the mean time I made backup of all config and app on my secondary pool !

Best Regards,

Sylvain

[dolbyman]

No.. the only one that would know is QNAP. You need to ask them via ticket

But unless the OpenZFS feature is done and tested, QNAP has no way of implementing it
https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/pull/12225

[Kunzite]

Hmm... the problem here stems from QNAP using vanilla ZFS RAID, rather than the mdraid QTS is using. That's a very good thing - mostly, because it has limitations. You see, ZFS - being made with enterprise in mind - considers pools are expanded by adding entire RAID vdevs to them, rather than our usual "I just want to add a drive".
Unfortunately, there is no "add a disk to a vdev (RAID)", nor "migrate the RAID level from RAID1 to RAID5 to RAID6".

The feature dolbyman linked to - still in development, who knows when it would be ready - is about adding a drive to an existing RAIDZ vdev (that is, a "RAID5" or a "RAID6").
There's no prospect on migrating RAID levels (from mirror to parity, or increase the parity level), it seems ZFS makes this very complicated.

However, the OP seems to want to migrate from a single disk vdev to mirror. This, AFAIK, is supported by ZFS but not by QNAP.
The usual ZFS command line tools are available and I'm sure one could run the corresponding zpool attach command. But, QNAP has a lot of extra stuff going on, and I doubt it would continue to work properly if you circumvent its own tools/GUI.

Once again, dolbyman's advice - to open a ticket - is exactly what you should do.

[dolbyman]

Right didnt think of RAID level migration vs adding devices to an existing zPool

[Sylrob]

@Dolbyman thank's for the link I wasn't following the right one !. I follow the one from Freebsd ! https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/raid ... e-for-zfs/

@Kunzite so my recommandation for people who are buying NAS with ZFS file system, buy it with all drive in and choose the right RAID for you at the beginning !

I know that I can add another RAID5 to my storage pool 2, but the fault tolerant will still be 1 disk and if you loose 1 RAID in a pool you loose the entire pool !. I know that RAID aren't a backup (I ear your mind Dolbyman), but tolerance feature save me a lot of time on other QNAP that I manage (RAID6) and no downtime for the entreprise. Loosing a RAID is a nightmare believe me I loose one on a DELL server (RAID5), I had never see that but I loose 2 drives on my RAID 5 in less than a minute (I bought a lotery ticket but didn't win). I can also add a mirror to my storage pool 1 and take off the dying disk after synch it's made but it's only a temporary solution !

Qnap has not much to say than what you said and what I already read, giving then the link this is the answer:

"I'm aware that the upstream ZFS can expand the pool adding more disks, but currently our QuTS Hero OS do not support this and I do not have any ETA for this feature to be implemented, if you want to try to expand the pool using the procedure that you shared it will be at your own risk."

If it interest someone ZFS is a complete different FileSystem with ZFS we don't talk about Raid5 or Raid 6 etc... we have Raidz1 (similar to raid5) Raidz2 (similar to raid6).

RAID VS ZFS https://www.45drives.com/community/arti ... and-RAIDZ/, https://www.klennet.com/notes/2019-07-0 ... raidz.aspx and much more on the web

A good read about performance https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05 ... ne-winner/

Thank you for your precious comment it's really appreciated !!. Will think of my two option,revert back to QTS or think like a ZFS guy and rethink all my storage both of them aren't a big deal for me this beast is for me at home !

Sylvain

[Sylrob]

Good Afternoon All !!

Just few words to let you know that this feature will be available in the next QTS Hero version and is currently in Beta version !

Quote ----
Storage & Snapshots
Users can now expand a storage pool by adding disks to expand an existing RAID group within the pool. When expanding the RAID group, you can also migrate the RAID group to a different RAID type.
Expanded and improved the "Activate Predictive S.M.A.R.T. Migration" feature and renamed it "Predictive Migration". Previously, this feature automatically migrated data from a faulty disk to a spare disk when S.M.A.R.T. errors were detected on the faulty disk. Now, users can specify various trigger events from sources other than S.M.A.R.T., including Western Digital Device Analytics, IronWolf Health Management, DA Drive Analyzer, and SSD estimated life remaining. You can configure this feature in Storage & Snapshots > Global Settings > Disk Health.
You can now select up to 24 disks for a single RAID-TP group.
Added support for Seagate dual-actuator disks. These disks appear with a "Seagate DA" tag in Storage & Snapshots > Storage > Disks/VJBOD > Disks.
Added support for Western Digital Device Analytics (WDDA) for Western Digital (WD) disks. To view WDDA information, go to Storage & Snapshots > Storage > Disks/VJBOD > Disks, select a WD disk, and click Health > View Details.
Added a new window that automatically appears when you insert new disks and helps you decide what to do with them. You can also access this window any time by going to Storage & Snapshots > Storage > Disks/VJBOD > Disks > More > Manage Free Disks.

End Quote ___

Complete list of feature here : https://www.qnap.com/en-us/release-note ... as_product

Best Regards,

Sylvain

[dolbyman]

We know .. other threads have already mentioned it

eg
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=170469#p845943