TS251+ One Volume to Raid 1 ( mirroring)

[pmcdunnough]

There seems to be varying opinions on this. I have a single 4TB drive in bay 1. I want to add an identical drive in bay 2 so that it is in RAID 1, that is I want it to mirror disk 1. I do not want to erase disk 1.

In Storage Manager there are various "tabs". One is Disks. The 2nd Storage Space. Under disks I have that disk 1 is in Raid Group 1. Disk 2 is in Raid group 2. If I go to Storage Space and highlight DataVol2 and click Manage I get a choice of Remove, Expand Volume, Actions with many options.

Am totally lost here and I have read the manual. I have a backup of disk 1 to my Synology, at least I have a backup of the data.

Is there a simple explanation of how to get disk 2 to mirror disk 1? The other explanation I saw was

"I logged into my NAS via Web gui.
Goto Control Panel / Storage Manager
Click on Volume / Manage / Migrate
Select my newly installed 3TB on bay 2 and confirm.
The volume have switched to RAID 1 and it is currently rebuilding the 2nd drive"

This sounds like what I want but I don't see this Volume->Manage->Migrate

I am running QTS 4.2

Any help would be appreciated and yes I know it would have been better to start with both 4TB drives at the beginning.

[MrVideo]

There seems to be varying opinions on this. I have a single 4TB drive in bay 1. I want to add an identical drive in bay 2 so that it is in RAID 1, that is I want it to mirror disk 1. I do not want to erase disk 1.

In Storage Manager there are various "tabs". One is Disks. The 2nd Storage Space. Under disks I have that disk 1 is in Raid Group 1. Disk 2 is in Raid group 2. If I go to Storage Space and highlight DataVol2 and click Manage I get a choice of Remove, Expand Volume, Actions with many options.

I'm confused. You state above that you want to add a disk, but then you state that the new disk has already been added.

I'm going to assume that at first you stated what you want to ultimately do, even though the disk is already in the NAS. If so, you failed to explain what you did after you installed the new disk.

From what I can surmise, you put it in a new RAID group. If so, you cannot join the two together and make a RAID1 config. You have to remove that data volume and RAID group. The new disk needs to be listed as free. If so, you can now go into the first RAID group and expand it, adding the new disk to that RAID group. But, what I do not know is if you can now tell it to become a RAID1 group. Go thru the 4.2 manual to see what it has to say about migrating to RAID1 from your current config.

[pmcdunnough]

I just got the disk and put it in. It got formatted. Nothing is on it so I can remove, erase, etc... whatever. Pretend I just have one disk and am going to add another. What I seem to have is a static volume. I don't see why I even have any Raid at all since I have one drive.

I did not put anything into a new Raid group. For some reason the system just does that. So disk 1 is in Raid Group 1. Odd.

I unfortunately don't know what I am migrating from. All I thought I had was a static single volume (disk 1). No raid, no storage spools.

I have gone through the manual and I am stumped. I can live with two static volumes and set up a scheduled sync but it would be a shame.

Edit:
I removed the volume (disk 2). When Expanding Raid Group 1 you only get the option of creating a static volume which is twice the size of disk 1. No redundancy there. You just end up with one large volume. Maybe under QTS 4.2 migrating from a single static volume to RAID1 is not possible?

[babuja]

If you have a copy of all data why don't you format the disks, start from zero, and after you upload all data?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[MrVideo]

If you have a copy of all data why don't you format the disks, start from zero, and after you upload all data?

At this point, unless another member can explain what is happening, this appears to be the only option.

[pmcdunnough]

If you have a copy of all data why don't you format the disks, start from zero, and after you upload all data?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Because I would have to reinstall and set up apps in particular SQL server and administration, dnsmasq for QNAP, Windows 10, etc...

I will do as you suggest but I was hoping I could just add the 4TB drive and have it mirror the one in bay 1.

[babuja]

If you have a copy of all data why don't you format the disks, start from zero, and after you upload all data?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Because I would have to reinstall and set up apps in particular SQL server and administration, dnsmasq for QNAP, Windows 10, etc...

I will do as you suggest but I was hoping I could just add the 4TB drive and have it mirror the one in bay 1.

I'm inexperienced user..maybe contact qnap support?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[pmcdunnough]

Ok, this is the solution as given to me by tech support. Took them one minute.

0- You CAN go from a static single volume to a Raid1 situation
Steps for my situation and this will work for anyone going from one drive to two.
1- Start NAS with the system drive in. This is disk1 in bay1 and is a single static volume.
2- Put drive two in bay two. If it is already formatted you must remove the volume ( not the physical disk). Once the volume is removed proceed to 3.
3- In Storage manager go to a Storage Space. Highlight DataVol1 and click Manage.
4- Select migrate and then in the next dialog box select disk 2. You should now see Single to Raid 1 in the box. Click Apply.

After 4 the Raid is rebuilding. Odd phrase as there was never a raid in the first place. If you go back to Disks in Storage Manager you will notice that both drives are now assigned the Raid1 group.

The bottom line is it is supported and easy to go from one drive to raid1.

[babuja]

Ok, this is the solution as given to me by tech support. Took them one minute.

0- You CAN go from a static single volume to a Raid1 situation
Steps for my situation and this will work for anyone going from one drive to two.
1- Start NAS with the system drive in. This is disk1 in bay1 and is a single static volume.
2- Put drive two in bay two. If it is already formatted you must remove the volume ( not the physical disk). Once the volume is removed proceed to 3.
3- In Storage manager go to a Storage Space. Highlight DataVol1 and click Manage.
4- Select migrate and then in the next dialog box select disk 2. You should now see Single to Raid 1 in the box. Click Apply.

After 4 the Raid is rebuilding. Odd phrase as there was never a raid in the first place. If you go back to Disks in Storage Manager you will notice that both drives are now assigned the Raid1 group.

The bottom line is it is supported and easy to go from one drive to raid1.

Cool, much easier then my suggestion

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[MrVideo]

It would be nice if the instructions were better laid out in the manual. The QNAP manuals do have their issues.

[KamalinO]

Ok, this is the solution as given to me by tech support. Took them one minute.

0- You CAN go from a static single volume to a Raid1 situation
Steps for my situation and this will work for anyone going from one drive to two.
1- Start NAS with the system drive in. This is disk1 in bay1 and is a single static volume.
2- Put drive two in bay two. If it is already formatted you must remove the volume ( not the physical disk). Once the volume is removed proceed to 3.
3- In Storage manager go to a Storage Space. Highlight DataVol1 and click Manage.
4- Select migrate and then in the next dialog box select disk 2. You should now see Single to Raid 1 in the box. Click Apply.

After 4 the Raid is rebuilding. Odd phrase as there was never a raid in the first place. If you go back to Disks in Storage Manager you will notice that both drives are now assigned the Raid1 group.

The bottom line is it is supported and easy to go from one drive to raid1.

Thanks for sharing this!!!

After checking the manual and many searches on the forum. I was lucky to find your instructions!
I just added a second 3TB WD RED drive to my current setup (TS-251 with one 3TB WD RED drive), and following your instruction, I now have it as RAID1.
It took about 10 hours to rebuild the volume.

This should be really added to the manual or make it sticky!!

One question though - how does RAID1 work? I mean, How can I be sure it is really creating a backup copy of each file ?? Is it something I can even do?

Thanks!

[dolbyman]

One question though - how does RAID1 work? I mean, How can I be sure it is really creating a backup copy of each file ?? Is it something I can even do?

Thanks!

it does not work on file level, it has a 1:1 copy of each storage block
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ ... els#RAID_1

[storageman]

One question though - how does RAID1 work? I mean, How can I be sure it is really creating a backup copy of each file ?? Is it something I can even do?

Thanks!

it does not work on file level, it has a 1:1 copy of each storage block
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ ... els#RAID_1

True it is writing at block level but you can be assured that effectively each disk is a mirror.
In this sense, worse case scenario where the box dies, you should be able to take a single disk and read the files on it with host EXT3/4 software and recover them (assuming at least one drive is good).

[bionicrocky]

I'm newbish to QNAP as well and have a tack on question. Please be gentle, I'm a network/security/wireless guy, not a storage guy. Loving this box so far.

I have 2 drives in my TS-251+ set as a single static volume. I'd like to change it to a RAID1 and get some redundancy. If I remove the volume, does that remove all of the data and shares I have created, or does it just then show the two drives as separate volumes and the shares spread around them? The Manage button on the DataVol1 Management screen is grayed out, so I don't have the option to convert it directly from there. They are 3TB drives and I've only got 1.5TB used for what it's worth.

I guess my thought is to remove the logical volume if it indeed doesn't cause my shares, configuration, and data to go away, then convert the two drives into a RAID. Does that make any sense? I've just got a lot of extras installed (ubooquity/iperf/VPN client/Radius auth against Clearpass/and a bunch of stuff out of the app center). I also have pretty intricate permissions tied into AD for all the shares, so I'd rather not have to format and start over if at all possible. If I do end up having to wipe and rebuild, does the config backup save the share information and can it use it if you go from a static volume to a RAID?

I'm on Firmware version 4.3.3.0188 Build 20170516


THANKS SO MUCH!!

-Rocky

[alexandroid]

Ok, this is the solution as given to me by tech support. Took them one minute.

OMG, thanks for sharing this! This is so counter intuitive - why QNAP simply doesn't make QTS to automatically suggest it as one of the actions after a new disk has been inserted?