Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Discussion on setting up QNAP NAS products.
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Izzy10
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Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:25 pm

Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Izzy10 »

OK, my QNAP 671 arrived today and I'm trying to decide on the best strategy for installing the existing harddisks. The drives (4x WD Red 4TB) are currently in a Synology NAS. Should I format them while still in the Synology, can the QNAP handle this during the initialisation of the new NAS or (the most cumbersome option) should I connect the drives to a PC one by one and remove the partitions before installing them in the QNAP?

A backup of my data is on two external drives and I'm getting a little nervous about formatting the NAS disks. Just to be on the safe side I may have to postpone the operation until this weekend when I have time to make an additional copy on whatever free space I can find on my PC. My fingers are itching though. Can the QNAP be initialised without any drives so I can at least play around with it?
TVS-671 i3 16GB | 4x WD Red 4TB
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Trexx
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Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:50 am
Location: Minnesota

Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Trexx »

Congrats for joining Club Q Izzy :) Now back to serious matters.

You don't need to format the drives in Synology, as QNAP will see them as "unformatted drives" when they are in the QNAP and handle that as part of setup. I am not sure if you can go through initialization w/o drives or not to be honest as I have never done it.

What format are your external backup drives in (ext4, btfs, etc.)? If it is a proprietary Synology backup format, then you could have troubles. Encrypted backups also would cause troubles.

Ideally you want to be able to attach that External backup drive to a PC and be able to see the files/folders on it. If you are say Ext4 or NTFS you are fine. ExFat would require a QNAP license but can be done as well.
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
Izzy10
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Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:25 pm

Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Izzy10 »

Of course I couldn't resist and installed the drives. It was quite easy to set up. The only thing I don't understand why over 50% of my storage space is used by "volume/LUN". I opted for raid 5 and the status of the RAID group is "synchronising". I'll just delete the storage pool and see how it goes.

First impressions: wow! It's a beast compared to my previous NAS and it is so heavy!
TVS-671 i3 16GB | 4x WD Red 4TB
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Moogle Stiltzkin
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Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

Izzy10 wrote: First impressions: wow! It's a beast compared to my previous NAS and it is so heavy!
gratz :) now you can update your forum profile with your new model hehe.

yeah it's heavy. I got a few qnap and other networking gear which i store on my cheap Ikea storage cabinet as such. can snuggly fit a 6bay unit into one of these cubicles.
Image

:mrgreen:
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1

Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)


Resources
[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
[Review] Moogle's TS-877 review
https://www.patreon.com/mooglestiltzkin
Izzy10
Starting out
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:25 pm

Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Izzy10 »

That's cool! My network equipment is all over the place.

OK, storage pool set up, thick volume built, now copying the first batch of data from my external drive. It was quite easy to set up but I can understand why someone without an IT background would find it daunting. Thanks everyone for helping me decide, I really love this unit.
TVS-671 i3 16GB | 4x WD Red 4TB
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Trexx
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Posts: 5393
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:50 am
Location: Minnesota

Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Trexx »

Have fun. QNAP defaults to using only 50% of Storage Pool capacity for initial volume setup. This leaves space for iSCSI, etc. volumes/luns. Also you can expand volumes once they are created, but you can't shrink. So this helps people not shoot themselves in the foot.
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
User avatar
Moogle Stiltzkin
Guru
Posts: 11448
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:21 am
Location: Around the world....
Contact:

Re: Installing/formatting existing drives in new NAS

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

Trexx wrote:Have fun. QNAP defaults to using only 50% of Storage Pool capacity for initial volume setup. This leaves space for iSCSI, etc. volumes/luns. Also you can expand volumes once they are created, but you can't shrink. So this helps people not shoot themselves in the foot.
i'll add this to faq. I see a lot of questions about this :mrgreen:
NAS
[Main Server] QNAP TS-877 (QTS) w. 4tb [ 3x HGST Deskstar NAS & 1x WD RED NAS ] EXT4 Raid5 & 2 x m.2 SATA Samsung 850 Evo raid1 +16gb ddr4 Crucial+ QWA-AC2600 wireless+QXP PCIE
[Backup] QNAP TS-653A (Truenas Core) w. 4x 2TB Samsung F3 (HD203WI) RaidZ1 ZFS + 8gb ddr3 Crucial
[^] QNAP TL-D400S 2x 4TB WD Red Nas (WD40EFRX) 2x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf, Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-509 Pro w. 4x 1TB WD RE3 (WD1002FBYS) EXT4 Raid5
[^] QNAP TS-253D (Truenas Scale)
[Mobile NAS] TBS-453DX w. 2x Crucial MX500 500gb EXT4 raid1

Network
Qotom Pfsense|100mbps FTTH | Win11, Ryzen 5600X Desktop (1x2tb Crucial P50 Plus M.2 SSD, 1x 8tb seagate Ironwolf,1x 4tb HGST Ultrastar 7K4000)


Resources
[Review] Moogle's QNAP experience
[Review] Moogle's TS-877 review
https://www.patreon.com/mooglestiltzkin
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