Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Questions about SNMP, Power, System, Logs, disk, & RAID.
Mousetick
Experience counts
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:28 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Mousetick »

Qmann wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:51 am Regardless either way, seems like a nice advantage to run apps and containers off a faster IO drive.
Containers are 'data' that are not part of the 'system'. As a user you can choose where they are stored, which may be on a volume based off faster disks, you are not obligated to store them on the 'system volume'. Using SSDs for them may provide significant performance benefits.
User avatar
Qmann
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:09 am
Location: USA

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Qmann »

Any idea how to change the storage area for container station without doing the steps above?
ContStation.PNG
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Model: TVS-872XT 64GB (Crucial 64GB Kit CT2K32G4SFD8266)
2 x 1TB XPG 1TB NVMe (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) [RAID-1]
5 x 16TB EXOS [RAID-5]
Borg Backup running to an offisite pi, AND to the local TS-569L
Model: TS-569L Borg server for backups
6 x 8TB Ironwolf [RAID-5]
Qotom-Q355G4 Fanless Mini Micro PC running pSense in front of everything
haproxy for anything inside the LAN
Mousetick
Experience counts
Posts: 1081
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:28 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Mousetick »

Qmann wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:14 am Any idea how to change the storage area for container station without doing the steps above?
I think you'd need to:
1. Export your containers
2. Uninstall Container Station
3. Re-install Container Station, choosing a new location for the Container shared folder
4. Import your containers
ajgillis
New here
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:46 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by ajgillis »

Sorry Qmann I didn't get an email notification there was an update on the forum.

The procedure worked well for me. I was having permission issues which are now fixed. My 2 x OS SSD's were wiped and my 4 x HDD's data drives kept their data.

I had the benefit of andreiz's post so I did things a bit different

- Back up everything important to external storage or cloud. This is precautionary as the data should not be wiped from your data drives.
- Back up system config via Control Panel.
- Move any system shares off the data drives if they exist ie /homes /Public /Web. I moved all the data from them into a backup drive and than edited their location in Control Panel, users, homes to the SSD's
- Select "Safely Detach" any Non OS volumes you may have. You will not be able to detach OS drives.
https://paste.pics/AVA6E

- Shut down NAS and remove all the drives, then power it up, log into QTS and choose "Reinitialize NAS"
- Once the NAS is restarted, use Qfinder Pro to set up the NAS. At some point QTS will ask you to insert the SSD OS disks (do not insert the HDD data disks that you wish to restore later)
- Once the disks are detected, choose Initialize system to overwrite the SSD’s. Select Start Smart Installation Guide. Setup the NAS with whatever setting you wish. If a firmware upgrade is required do not do it. My restore of the system config failed. I expect it was because my backup was a different OS version then the new firmware. Restore the firmware at the end.
- Log in and restore the system config from previously saved file.
- Shut down NAS, insert HDD data drives and boot up. Go to Storage & Snapshots and do "Scan and recover storage space" on the NAS. The system should recover the storage pool and volumes.
- Do above step for any other raid group you wish to restore.

AG
Model: TVS-682 i3-7100 32GB
(SSD): [RAID-1] 2 x 500 GB Samsung 860 evo
(HDD): [RAID-5] 4 x 8 TB Seagate Ironwolf
User avatar
Qmann
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:09 am
Location: USA

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Qmann »

Some things you'll need to remember if you do this:

- Export any encryption keys for your encrypted shares. The password alone is not enough to restore it.
- Note your install Entware packages "opkg list-installed' as they will need reinstalled
- You'll need to backup and re-install your autorun scripts in /share/CACHEDEV(X)_DATA/.system/autorun/scripts
- Security counselor will need to be reinstalled, so note anything special you have set here
- Any RTRR backup jobs in HBS 3 will need to be re-authenticated even though the password is saved
- You'll need to backup and re-add any scripts in /opt/etc/init.d/
- Re-setup any snapshot configurations
- Update any custom cron jobs including scripts to add the jobs after boot

Q
Model: TVS-872XT 64GB (Crucial 64GB Kit CT2K32G4SFD8266)
2 x 1TB XPG 1TB NVMe (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) [RAID-1]
5 x 16TB EXOS [RAID-5]
Borg Backup running to an offisite pi, AND to the local TS-569L
Model: TS-569L Borg server for backups
6 x 8TB Ironwolf [RAID-5]
Qotom-Q355G4 Fanless Mini Micro PC running pSense in front of everything
haproxy for anything inside the LAN
craig.williams
New here
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 07, 2019 9:56 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by craig.williams »

So my question is after you did this is there a benefit?
Does SAMBA work better?
Do files move faster?
Is response good?

THE ONLY service I have running is Microsoft Networking.
every other service SQL, WEB, FTP, Etc. everything is shutdown.
I have seen that Samba runs very slowly
I have many files on the server 50 million at times and they are small document images. (25k or less)
it is only used locally no internet access. (wish I could find the triggers where it searches for access and STOP that waste of time)

There are times when copying large numbers of them (10 million) about halfway thru, the system just hangs for no reason I can discern.
I use fastcopy and other such programs to move files as the QNAP file manager is useless for large numbers of files and HB3 is SO SLOW.

I am wondering of the Network ports are an issue so I am going back to main ports instead of the 10GB ports.
Not sure if trunking helps or hurts.

The CPU usgage at that time of holdup is near 0
It is a TVS-1271U-RP specs are below
Memory is at 25GB free or more I have 32 GB on the system

QBoost clears out the trash but nothing changes ( sure wish this was an active service we could trigger instead of a switch)
Microsoft Networking uses 250MB but is using no CPU
Nothing is coming thru the NIC
It just stops serving for these machines....

It is like it is dead, but it isn't.
I am wondering if moving storage like Samba to the SSD would improve the reliability and response for Samba
I think it allocates space for usage and it is getting overwhelmed and timing out.

Server name 1181NAS03
Model name TVS-1271U-RP
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790S CPU @ 3.20GHz (4 cores, 8 threads)
Serial number Q177I0XXXX (BLOCKED OUT JUST IN CASE)
BIOS version QW10IR12
Total memory 32 GB (31 GB usable)
Dual channel supported NIC_VIEW_YES
Memory slots 4 (8 GB / 8 GB / 8 GB / 8 GB)
Firmware version 4.5.4.1723 Build 20210708
System up time 14 Days 6 Hour 0 Minute(s) < JUST REBUILT IT. it is 3 years old I think
Time zone (GMT-06:00) Central Time(US &amp; Canada)
Filename encoding English
Added 2 10 GB network ports
User avatar
Qmann
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:09 am
Location: USA

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Qmann »

I don't know that I've seen an incredible amount of difference overall since all the files I access are on disks. To me it seems like unit startup and services load faster, but nothing to write home about. I think one area that was really noticeable to me was the loading of certain screens such as "shared folders" in the control panel, and other panels that need to load system data for display. I'm probably on the fence if I'd do this setup next time as I would really like to have more of my SSD for VMs. Remember that if you use snapshots on SYSTEM, this will eat a lot of your SSD as well. In my case my SYSTEM files only take 68GB. So in total for the 1TB SSD in RAID 1 I have; 802GB available capacity, with over-provisioning of 141GB, and 9 snapshots that take 320GB, resulting in about half of it left...

For Samba I've occasionally seen the hangs you talk about, but just wait them out. I have tested Samba with the files sitting on the SSD instead of my disks and the speed is pretty darn fast on 10G. I you are worried that your network might be the issue, setup iperf on your NAS and test it. Iperf uses RAM and takes the disks out of the equation. Personally I think the Samba occasional hangups are just due to the QNAP OS managing processes inefficiently, but nothing to prove that.

Q
Model: TVS-872XT 64GB (Crucial 64GB Kit CT2K32G4SFD8266)
2 x 1TB XPG 1TB NVMe (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) [RAID-1]
5 x 16TB EXOS [RAID-5]
Borg Backup running to an offisite pi, AND to the local TS-569L
Model: TS-569L Borg server for backups
6 x 8TB Ironwolf [RAID-5]
Qotom-Q355G4 Fanless Mini Micro PC running pSense in front of everything
haproxy for anything inside the LAN
craig.williams
New here
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 07, 2019 9:56 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by craig.williams »

I think I agree with the QNAP getting in the way...or I suspect that some form of throttling.
I recently turned off all of the cache in the system and turned off EXT4 write cache and had a tremendous improvement in speed and throughput.
Users at my office are telling me it is magnitudes faster than it was and wondering what I did to achieve the effect.
Strangely enough, I TURNED OFF everything that was suppose to make the system faster....who knew.
Keep in mind, my company is all about MOVING FILES not working with and editing them.
If we were editing large video files or huge databases I think that CACHE would be a big benefit for the users.

In my case this week I moved 64 million files in 32 hours
Last week it took over 160 hours.
I think that after cache runs out of space the buffers are not being cleared fast enough.
If there were some method of setting limits on the cache for how long before it was stale and needed to be moved to disk I think I could adjust it to a very short time and use cache as a buffer just like we do for burning CD's or watching streaming videos. Just have to keep ahead of the demand.

At the time I purchased the m.2 drives the biggest ones I could readily find were 250 Gig which is not that big. Perhaps if I had 1T or more it would have the room needed to cache and clear
but in the current configuration and the number of small files we move I think the system gets in it's own way.

I still like the device, wish some of it were better documented. Support has been pretty good all things considered.
I bought 2 of these and use them to back each other up and I use 1 10G port to transfer files between them.
I have not tested the transfere between them since the change but I suspect that it will be quicker but as noted, QTS seems to have a throttle I can't find and I think it gets in its own way.
I have never seen CPU over 14% even with 12 people dumping and moving files at the same time and even them the speed is not that impressive.
We are using a Netgear Managed 10g/1g switch and trying to tune it to help. I trunked a few of the 1g ports as a test and that seems to be working better than the 10G which supports my theory that QTS has some limiter or setting that is set too low for the 10G ports. Just a theory as I am often wrong and finding things out as I go along.

Took me a long time to turn off everything as a test just to find that the things that are suppose to speed up a system didn't.
craig.williams
New here
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 07, 2019 9:56 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by craig.williams »

By the way thanks for responding so quickly,
liquidity
New here
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 02, 2016 4:34 am

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by liquidity »

Thanks everyone for this very helpful thread. Based on this thread, I recently moved from 3 spinning disks with a 500GB SSD cache (never noticed any speed difference) to the SSD as the first volume and the 3 spinning disks as vol 2 in RAID5. The speed difference for me is astounding. RAID scrubbing speeds have increased. Apps are snappier. And it's SO MUCH QUIETER.The spinning disks hardly ever make noise, whereas before it sounded like something was being read/written all the time.

I am limited to the 4 bays at this time. My question is, if the SSD dies, will I lose all the data on the RAID array? I back the entire thing up to external USB every evening so even that wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be annoying. Unfortunately moving to a larger QNAP is not a possibility at this time so I would love to know what the outcome of a dead SSD in this case would be.

Thanks!
User avatar
Qmann
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:09 am
Location: USA

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Qmann »

No, you wont lose the data AFAIK, but if you are running any encrypted drives for your RAID array, make sure that you have the keys exported to some place safe. You should be able to initialize QTS on a new SSD and then reattach the RAID 5 array (make sure you disks stay in the same order). But, you will lose some settings and other data typically associated with the first volume. QTS system is written to all drives, so technically speaking you should be able to boot back to the RAID 5 without the SSD, but I haven't tested this.

What you REALLY want is RAID 1 on that first volume, so if one SSD of the two fails, you can just replace it. I cannot tell what model you have, but I would buy 2 NVME if you have the option.

Q
Last edited by Qmann on Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Model: TVS-872XT 64GB (Crucial 64GB Kit CT2K32G4SFD8266)
2 x 1TB XPG 1TB NVMe (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) [RAID-1]
5 x 16TB EXOS [RAID-5]
Borg Backup running to an offisite pi, AND to the local TS-569L
Model: TS-569L Borg server for backups
6 x 8TB Ironwolf [RAID-5]
Qotom-Q355G4 Fanless Mini Micro PC running pSense in front of everything
haproxy for anything inside the LAN
liquidity
New here
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 02, 2016 4:34 am

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by liquidity »

Thanks Qmann - I don't have that option - it's a TS-451 with 3 spinning disks and 1 SSD. What you told me is what I wanted to know - if the SSD fails, I'll just get another one, set it all back up, and re-attach the array. This is just a home NAS for music/movies/etc. so a little downtime is no issue. Thanks for the quick response!
Thisisnotmyname
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 447
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 1:21 am

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Thisisnotmyname »

Qmann wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:07 am No, you wont lose the data AFAIK, but if you are running any encrypted drives for your RAID array, make sure that you have the keys exported to some place safe. You should be able to initialize QTS on a new SSD and then reattach the RAID 5 array (make sure you disks stay in the same order). But, you will lose some settings and other data typically associated with the first volume. QTS system is written to all drives, so technically speaking you should be able to boot back to the RAID 5 without the SSD, but I haven't tested this.

What you REALLY want is RAID 0 on that first volume, so if one SSD of the two fails, you can just replace it. I cannot tell what model you have, but I would buy 2 NVME if you have the option.

Q
This is incorrect, if you lose one disk in a RAID0 array you will lose the entire array. RAID1 (mirroring) would allow you to lose one drive and rebuild.
User avatar
Qmann
Easy as a breeze
Posts: 302
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:09 am
Location: USA

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by Qmann »

Thisisnotmyname wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:25 am This is incorrect, if you lose one disk in a RAID0 array you will lose the entire array. RAID1 (mirroring) would allow you to lose one drive and rebuild.
Yep, it should be 1 for mirroring. I edited the post! Thanks!
Model: TVS-872XT 64GB (Crucial 64GB Kit CT2K32G4SFD8266)
2 x 1TB XPG 1TB NVMe (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) [RAID-1]
5 x 16TB EXOS [RAID-5]
Borg Backup running to an offisite pi, AND to the local TS-569L
Model: TS-569L Borg server for backups
6 x 8TB Ironwolf [RAID-5]
Qotom-Q355G4 Fanless Mini Micro PC running pSense in front of everything
haproxy for anything inside the LAN
m_g_s_g
Starting out
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2016 4:37 pm

Re: Moving QTS to SSD, keeping shared folders on HDD

Post by m_g_s_g »

ajgillis wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 6:04 am ...
- Select "Safely Detach" any Non OS volumes you may have. You will not be able to detach OS drives.
...
Sorry to ask in an old thread.

I would like to move the system drive (now two disks in a RAID1 group) to SSD (two disks in RAID1) while preserving the rest of the data in the original RAID1 group.

Since "You will not be able to safely detach OS drives", will it be possible later to "Recover and select Attach and Recover Storage Pool" for the old RAID1 group?

It is unclear for me if this is the case.
Post Reply

Return to “System & Disk Volume Management”