Migrate 4 bay NAS with 2 disks (No RAID) to RAID 6 adding 2 more disks

[johk02]

Hi,

We have one QNAP TS-453A which we are mirroring our working NAAS onto.
The NAS currently have 2x 4TB drives which are set to one Static volume.
The NAS does NOT have a Storage Pool setup.

We want to add 2x 4TB drives to the NAS and create a RAID (5 or 6).

To my understanding as this is one Static Drive I can’t ‘change’ it to a RAID without removing the data and then build the RAID.
However, as there are no storage pool created – theoretically – would it be possible to
1. create a new Storage pool after the extra drives are added
2. created a RAID with limited storage
3. copy the data from the Static Volume to the new RAID
4. then expand the Storage Pool
5. hopefully the current backup job can ‘remain’

Any comments and or suggestion to any other alternative.

Thank you,
Johk

[holger_kuehn]

The NAS currently have 2x 4TB drives which are set to one Static volume.

This is one thing you'd need to clarify first, two drives in one volume means either of two things:

1. Both drives are RAID 0, JBOD, etc. - using the whole capacity of 8 TB at the moment or
2. RAID 1, leaving only 4 TB of space

When the first one applies, you'd need to start from scratch as you can not delete the existing volume without deleting the system partition.
If it's the second one just migrate to RAID 5 / 6 and expand the Static Volume.

It's not relevant that you use static volume over storage pools here, the options remain the same as you change the underlying RAID.

[johk02]

Hi,

thank yo for your reply.
It is the first option - it is JBOB.
OK - I was hoping that I could create a Storage pool on the 2 new disks with a Raid 1.
The copy the data from the 'existing' drives to the new Raid 1.
When complete - expand/migrate the new RAID 1 to include the exist disks.

My idea is to keep the current Mirror alive while upgrading the system.

Thanks
Jonas

[holger_kuehn]

I see your point, but I suspect that the moment you kill your first (existing) storage, to free the discs and add them to you new storage pool, the System volume will be gone.

Not sure if that's possible or what happens in this case. I've never removed an existing pool, either system or not.