Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

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Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by flagator »

Hello All,

The WD Red 4TB price just dropped so I picked up two more to upgrade my TVS-473 from a 2-disc RAID 1 configuration to 4-disc RAID 6. I only have about 1 TB of data total currently on the NAS and only power it up every other week or so to backup home PCs and MACs. I back up the PCs and MACs to external USB drives in between NAS backups and use DropBox for data I need quick access to.

I'm backing up the NAS right now to an external USB drive while trying to figure out the most efficient (or proper?) way to test and burn in the new drives and then migrate to RAID 6.

If I'm undertanding the QNAP software users manual correctly it looks like I have to first migrate to a 3-disc RAID 5 configuration and then migrate again to the 4-disc RAID 6 configuration. Is the best or most efficient way to do this?

Any help and/or opinions are appreciated. Thanks.
Dan

TVS-473-8GB
QTS Version 4.3.4.0695 Build 2018/08/30
Storage Pool 1 - HDD Volume1 - Four WD Red 4TB in RAID 6 - Thick-Provisioned
NAS backup to WD Red 8TB via USB Dock
CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Gigabit home network
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Don
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Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by Don »

Put the disks in and see if the option to go directly to RAID 6 is available. If not then go to 5 and then 6.

In a 4 'bay unit with 4tb drives I would use RAID 5 instead of 6.
Use the forum search feature before posting.

Use RAID and external backups. RAID will protect you from disk failure, keep your system running, and data accessible while the disk is replaced, and the RAID rebuilt. Backups will allow you to recover data that is lost or corrupted, or from system failure. One does not replace the other.

NAS: TVS-882BR | F/W: 5.0.1.2346 | 40GB | 2 x 1TB M.2 SATA RAID 1 (System/VMs) | 3 x 1TB M.2 NMVe QM2-4P-384A RAID 5 (cache) | 5 x 14TB Exos HDD RAID 6 (Data) | 1 x Blu-ray
NAS: TVS-h674 | F/W: 5.0.1.2376 | 16GB | 3 x 18TB RAID 5
Apps: DNSMasq, PLEX, iDrive, QVPN, QLMS, MP3fs, HBS3, Entware, DLstation, VS, +
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Trexx
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Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by Trexx »

Agreed... with 4 drives, and only 4TB, would agree that Raid-5 is better choice.
Paul

Model: TS-877-1600 FW: 4.5.3.x
QTS (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x 1TB WD Blue m.2's
Data (HDD): [RAID-5] 6 x 3TB HGST DeskStar
VMs (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x1TB SK Hynix Gold
Ext. (HDD): TR-004 [Raid-5] 4 x 4TB HGST Ultastor
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 64GB DDR4-2666
UPS: CP AVR1350

Model:TVS-673 32GB & TS-228a Offline[/color]
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2018 Plex NAS Compatibility Guide | QNAP Plex FAQ | Moogle's QNAP Faq
flagator
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Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by flagator »

My original plan was to go to RAID 5 but I'm more concerned about reliability then performance, cost/TB, or storage size. Using one of those online reliability calculators it appears there's about a 25% likelihood of data loss over 10 years in RAID 5 versus negligible risk of data loss for RAID 6. Given that I'm too lazy to do continuous backups of the NAS, my best chance to avoid data loss is to make sure the data on the NAS itself is as reliable as possible. Or at least that's what I'm thinking anyways...
Dan

TVS-473-8GB
QTS Version 4.3.4.0695 Build 2018/08/30
Storage Pool 1 - HDD Volume1 - Four WD Red 4TB in RAID 6 - Thick-Provisioned
NAS backup to WD Red 8TB via USB Dock
CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Gigabit home network
User avatar
Trexx
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Posts: 5393
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:50 am
Location: Minnesota

Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by Trexx »

flagator wrote:My original plan was to go to RAID 5 but I'm more concerned about reliability then performance, cost/TB, or storage size. Using one of those online reliability calculators it appears there's about a 25% likelihood of data loss over 10 years in RAID 5 versus negligible risk of data loss for RAID 6. Given that I'm too lazy to do continuous backups of the NAS, my best chance to avoid data loss is to make sure the data on the NAS itself is as reliable as possible. Or at least that's what I'm thinking anyways...
You NEED to be doing backups. Attach a external USB drive, create the backup job/schedule and you are done. Set and forget (other than to check for failures now and then).




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Last edited by Trexx on Sun Jul 23, 2017 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Paul

Model: TS-877-1600 FW: 4.5.3.x
QTS (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x 1TB WD Blue m.2's
Data (HDD): [RAID-5] 6 x 3TB HGST DeskStar
VMs (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x1TB SK Hynix Gold
Ext. (HDD): TR-004 [Raid-5] 4 x 4TB HGST Ultastor
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 64GB DDR4-2666
UPS: CP AVR1350

Model:TVS-673 32GB & TS-228a Offline[/color]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018 Plex NAS Compatibility Guide | QNAP Plex FAQ | Moogle's QNAP Faq
flagator
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Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by flagator »

I backup the NAS periodically to a Seagate 2TB external USB drive and each computer that I backup to the NAS also have their own 2TB Seagate USB drives connected for backups.

Any opinions on whether it would be quicker or better to start the NAS setup process over, build the new RAID volume, and then copy the backup data back to the NAS, rather than migrating RAID twice? Would you mind expanding a little on why you prefer RAID 5 for the 4 drive setup?

Thank you for the help and advice.
Dan

TVS-473-8GB
QTS Version 4.3.4.0695 Build 2018/08/30
Storage Pool 1 - HDD Volume1 - Four WD Red 4TB in RAID 6 - Thick-Provisioned
NAS backup to WD Red 8TB via USB Dock
CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Gigabit home network
User avatar
Trexx
Ask me anything
Posts: 5393
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:50 am
Location: Minnesota

Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by Trexx »

flagator wrote:I backup the NAS periodically to a Seagate 2TB external USB drive and each computer that I backup to the NAS also have their own 2TB Seagate USB drives connected for backups.

Any opinions on whether it would be quicker or better to start the NAS setup process over, build the new RAID volume, and then copy the backup data back to the NAS, rather than migrating RAID twice? Would you mind expanding a little on why you prefer RAID 5 for the 4 drive setup?

Thank you for the help and advice.
I would upgrade to the latest firmware (build 238) if you haven't already. I would then rebuild it as a RAID-5 storage pool with thick volumes. Enable your snapshots, setup your backups, plug in your UPS, and you are good to go.

Will be much faster than doing 2 raid migrations. As for Raid-5, reality is you likely aren't going to have this for 10 years so the increased reliability of Raid-6 vs. 5 really isn't that big of a deal.

The real RISK is one of a few things happening.

1) You have multiple drives fail at once. Not real common, but since most are bought all at the same time, could in theory happen.
2) You have 1 drive fail, and during the rebuild another drive goes bad. Much more common occurrence than #1. So what impacts those odds.... # of drives and length of rebuild time. Less drives = less chances for another to fail. Smaller HDD's (4TB) = shorter rebuild times (vs. say 8-10TB). Both of those work in your favor.
3) SW/Data corruption/Operator Failure issue - Raid5 vs. 6 won't matter in this scenario.

So for smaller size config's like this, I would rather keep my performance and storage maximized with a RAID-5 config, but I still plan for failure by having backups on hand.
Paul

Model: TS-877-1600 FW: 4.5.3.x
QTS (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x 1TB WD Blue m.2's
Data (HDD): [RAID-5] 6 x 3TB HGST DeskStar
VMs (SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x1TB SK Hynix Gold
Ext. (HDD): TR-004 [Raid-5] 4 x 4TB HGST Ultastor
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 64GB DDR4-2666
UPS: CP AVR1350

Model:TVS-673 32GB & TS-228a Offline[/color]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018 Plex NAS Compatibility Guide | QNAP Plex FAQ | Moogle's QNAP Faq
flagator
Know my way around
Posts: 121
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2016 8:59 am

Re: Migration from 2-disc RAID 1 to 4-disc RAID 6 - Best Practices?

Post by flagator »

Yeah, the MTTDL calculators don't factor in SW/data corruption/operator error. I need to read up about the snapshots and thick provisioning. I really don't understand how that fits into a data reliability strategy or if it's more an issue of efficiency or convenience during restoration. RAID 6 probably is overkill for my scenario but having lost data before I'm a little paranoid. Thanks again.
Dan

TVS-473-8GB
QTS Version 4.3.4.0695 Build 2018/08/30
Storage Pool 1 - HDD Volume1 - Four WD Red 4TB in RAID 6 - Thick-Provisioned
NAS backup to WD Red 8TB via USB Dock
CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD
Gigabit home network
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