Capacity - Total Size - Free Size

marcflo · Post by **marcflo** » Thu Mar 16, 2017 7:48 pm

Hi all,
I have a TS-219P+ as a temporary NAS for migrating some data. I have moved data onto one drive in the NAS and now added a second drive in the event of the first disk failing.
When adding the second drive of the same size and type and preparing it for use it cannot be formatted to its capacity.
Total size 1.99Gb: Free size 1.43Gb: but its Capacity is 1863.02Gb
I also tried another drive larger in size and the same thing happened, max formatted size is only 1.99Gb

2017-03-16 22_28_13-NASC193B5.png

I did search the forum but didn't find any posts related, apologies if overlooked similar posts and thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.

Cheers
Marc

dolbyman · Post by **dolbyman** » Thu Mar 16, 2017 10:25 pm

one of those unsupported green drives has a SMART warning ..what is that?

MrVideo · Post by **MrVideo** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 4:50 am

marcflo wrote:Total size 1.99Gb: Free size 1.43Gb: but its Capacity is 1863.02Gb

Not all of the drive's available area is used to store data. There are four partitions placed onto the drive. One is for data and the other three for system stuff. The generic formula is that the data area will be .9 of the drive size.

OneCD · Post by **OneCD** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 5:13 am

MrVideo wrote:
marcflo wrote:Total size 1.99Gb: Free size 1.43Gb: but its Capacity is 1863.02Gb
Not all of the drive's available area is used to store data.

I think @marcflo is highlighting that the NAS thinks the drive is only 1.99GB in size.

marcflo · Post by **marcflo** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:25 am

Thanks for your replies.
@OneCD you are correct. A 2Tb drive has once installed has only 2Gb of space available.
@dolbyman, yes the drive has a warning on it. It was part of a raid 1 in this NAS mirroring the other drive previously and i stopped using it. But that does not explain why its capacity once installed is only 2Gb instead of 2Tb. Note that i had installed another 4Tb drive (yes on the supported list) and the same result! 4Tb hdd once installed showing only 2Gb available! So the problem is not the warning on the drive.

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 5:56 pm

marcflo wrote:@dolbyman, yes the drive has a warning on it. It was part of a raid 1 in this NAS mirroring the other drive previously and i stopped using it.

How did you stop using the RAID 1? Reinstalled the NAS completely from scratch?

Did you clear this 2 TB disk from it's content before reinsterting it into the NAS?

marcflo · Post by **marcflo** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 6:56 pm

I stopped using the raid1 some years ago after migrating to another NAS. So in answer to how did i stop using it i cant remember.
The hard drive installed was setup as a single drive and I started using it! Then I added the second drive installing it the same way ... formatting it etc

However the question is why is it the same for any additional drive I install into the NAS whether it be a 2TB or 4TB. I format the drives once inserted into the NAS in preparation for use.
Do they need to be formatted outside the NAS?

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:08 pm

marcflo wrote:I format the drives once inserted into the NAS in preparation for use.
Do they need to be formatted outside the NAS?

Preferably yes if being reused from something else.

Absolutely yes If having been used in a Qnap and are added to an already configured and running NAS. Otherwise you'll introducing a second, possibly conflicting, configuration into the same NAS. That I imagine could very well lead to unpredictable behaviour.

MrVideo · Post by **MrVideo** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:18 pm

Actually, any drive added to the NAS should not be formatted at all. There should be no partition tables. When the NAS "sees" that the HDD is partition table free, it will treat it as new and do the partitioning needed for the NAS.

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:32 pm

MrVideo wrote:Actually, any drive added to the NAS should not be formatted at all.

Preferably yes but a single formatted partition also works. That's possible for almost anybody to achieve regardless of previous computer experience or operating system used.

marcflo · Post by **marcflo** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 8:08 pm

Thanks P3R, could be then that the drive needs formatting outside of the NAS.
Looks like i had better invest in a USB HDD doc so i can format the drives.
Or is there another way to format the drive using the NAS without introducing unpredictable behaviour.

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:04 am

marcflo wrote:Looks like i had better invest in a USB HDD doc so i can format the drives.

A USB disk dock/enclosure is a very good thing to have anyway.

P3R · Post by **P3R** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:44 am

marcflo wrote:@dolbyman, yes the drive has a warning on it.

As dolbyman points out the disks you use are WD Green that are known to cause issues in NAS/RAID applications. Already that is reason enough to replace them both with compatible disks (I would avoid desktop disks completely).

Additionally the warning indicate some more issues with disk 1 that I would investigate before using the NAS for any data storage.

What does the SMART information for the disk in question tell you?

marcflo · Post by **marcflo** » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:52 pm

Thanks for all your help and suggestions guys.
This was a temporary solution as a backup for migrating data temporarily.
As it all got a bit too hard I worked out another way to do it.
The WD Green drives are not part of my normal NAS config, its just what i had lying around one of which has some errors.
My regular NAS drives are WD REDs

Looking forward to my new Qnap NAS ... once i decide which one to get.

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