TS-431 RAID1 to RAID5 online migration

[jollino]

Hello all,
I have a TS-431 running QTS 4.3.3 (SMB) and I currently have two 5 TB disks in a RAID1 configuration. I would like to upgrade to RAID5 by adding two 6 TB disks (which will be limited to 5 TB, but the 5 TB ones are impossible to find around here so I'm fine with it), but I'd like some clarification about whether it's indeed possible to do so without starting from scratch. I've read through the forums and I've read conflicting reports, such as online migration not being possible with SMB firmwares.

Page 90 of the latest 4.3.x SMB manual seems to say it is possible to migrate, but I'm not entirely sure whether this means the data will be retained:

1. Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2. Double click a storage pool to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3. Select a RAID group and click "Manage" > "Migrate".
4. Select the hard disk drive(s) from the list and click "Apply".
5. Please note that all data on the selected hard disk drive(s) will be erased. Click "Yes" if you are certain about this.
6. The chosen RAID configuration is migrated to the new one.

Do steps 4 and 5 refer to the new disks only?

Otherwise, I suppose I can do it from scratch by using one of the new disks as a temporary buffer, like this:
1. Let A and B be the current disks in RAID1, and C and D be the new disks
2. Connect D via USB 3 to the TS-431 and format it
3. Copy all the data from the RAID1 volume to D using the File Station
4. Mount C into the TS-431, destroy the A+B RAID1 array and recreate a new RAID5 array using A+B+C
5. Copy everything back from D to the new RAID5 array
6. Mount D into the TS-431 and expand the array to include it as well.

Can anyone please confirm that that's an acceptable approach? I've never carried out this sort of operation on a NAS and I actually just suffered a catastrophic damage on a separate, non-NAS disk so I'm genuinely tentative about anything involving temporary loss of redundancy.

Thank you very much in advance.

[dolbyman]

data on the new drives will be erased..not the old drives

but as always...make sure you have backups of your files at all times

[jollino]

Thank you very much!

[DSL72]

Hi Jollino,

I have a similar problem of actually having two RAID1 Volumes (2x 4TB HDD each) on my 4Bay TS-453, which I would like to expand to a more efficient use of storage space by migrating them to one RAID5 array. As I do have an external backup, a temporary loss of data on the second RAID1 array could be acceptable, so I could format these two disks and use them to expand my "first RAID1" volume to RAID5 as you explained in your initial post. However, I would not like to endanger my "system HDD", which is part of the first RAID1 array, as I would not like to start from scratch again with all my system settings. I am still using QTS4.2.5.

Therefore I would like to know if your approach has worked well, and what I would need to take care of when following the same approach.

Thanks!

[jollino]

Hello there,
I only had a single RAID1 array so my situation was a little different, but I think you should indeed be able to destroy your second RAID1 array and "move" the disks into the first one, which you can then exapand (note that the 'expand' menu item became available to me only when I put in the third disk in.) Also note that I'm using QTS 4.3.x.

The whole process was quite painless, just quite slow. I first put one of the new disks in a USB enclosure and copied everything from my homes folder to it, just to be sure. Then I put the other new disk in and converted the array to RAID5. After that the array went through an automatic reshaping phase that took about 20 hours; then it took another couple of hours to expand the volume size so that the extra space became available. I waited until it was done to add the fourth disk to the array just to be sure, and it all happened again. The automated scrubbing also began while it was doing the final expansion, so that slowed it down further (and had me worry there for a while, but it all went smoothly).
I was able to speed up the reshaping phase by following the tips here viewtopic.php?t=10268, but it still took quite a while. I guess RAID is an exercise in patience.

Good luck!