expand static volume

Questions about SNMP, Power, System, Logs, disk, & RAID.
Post Reply
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

Please excuse my english. I hope you're able to understand me. I also hope this is the correct forum for my question:

I own a TS-831X and created a static volume (Raid6) I thought it would be more space than I ever needed but I was wrong. Now I want to expand the capacity.

My plan:
1. buy a UX-800P, connect it to the TS-831X
2. create a Storage Pool with the discs in the UX-800P (RAID 6 again?!)
3. move the data from my current static volume to the new storage pool
4. add the old static volume to the new storage pool

My questions:
1. I have to do it in this order because I can't add my old static volume to a storage pool and keep it's data, right?
2. Can I map the storage pool as a drive in windows so that everything stays the same (no links broken / files not found etc when accessing the storage pool as a network drive)? Edit: I guess it's no problem but if it could be it's a deal breaker. Then I'd rather create another static volume on the UX-800P and add it as a second network drive.
3. Regarding point 4 - do I have to create another RAID Group with my old drives from the static Volume? If so I 'loose' 4 drives in total what seems a bit much. Or is there a way to add them to the RAID 6 already in the Storage Pool?
User avatar
dolbyman
Guru
Posts: 35032
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 am
Location: Vancouver BC , Canada

Re: expand static volume

Post by dolbyman »

For the Plan:
1. UX units are very low performing .. be aware of that
2. Can't you delete the volume, create a pool and restore from backups? .. I hope you have backups

For the questions:
1. correct you will have to create a pool, you can't keep the data on the static volume
2.all is done by shares, as long as you recreate the original shares (and files0) windows wouldn't even know the difference
3.Here is a picture from this infopage .. it should explain it
Flexible_Volume_1.png
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

dolbyman wrote:For the Plan:
1. UX units are very low performing .. be aware of that
Thanks for the fast reply but what kind of performance? Is the data read rate in a Gigabit Ethernet worse than from the main TS-831X unit? Nothing else matters so if that stays the way it is I'm good.
User avatar
dolbyman
Guru
Posts: 35032
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 am
Location: Vancouver BC , Canada

Re: expand static volume

Post by dolbyman »

well the enclosure is "dumb" so all the disk management is done by the host NAS, so instead of using the Full USB speed to read and write data of it, it has to devide of overall bandwidth by the number of disks (and RAID level chosen)

640Mbit\s \8 drives * RAID impact ..so even if all disks are written to/read at the same time (e.g. RAID0) that would result in ~80MB\s sequential write\read (max)
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

Thanks again. That doesn't sound too bad. But I guess I better try out the performance of the pool before I delete my static volume then. If it is bad I can still simply add the pool as another, slower, network drive without it having any effect on the performance of the main unit, as long as the new pool isn't reading/writing, correct?
User avatar
MrVideo
Experience counts
Posts: 4742
Joined: Fri May 03, 2013 2:26 pm

Re: expand static volume

Post by MrVideo »

Another idea...

Instead of wasting the money on the expansion unit, spend the money on eight drives that are at least twice the size of the unstated current drives. Make sure that the TS-831X supports that new size. Also get a cheap USB3.0 docking station. Back up all of your data to some of the new drives. Shut down and remove the current drives (keeping track of tray order). Rebuild the NAS with at least four of the new drives, as RAID6. Restore the data. Add the new drives and expand the RAID6.

If anything goes wrong, you can shut down, restore the old drives and do the backup again and start over.

Once it is all done, you can use the old drives and the USB docking station to do backups. You can add more backup drives as needed.
QTS MANUALS
Submit QNAP Support Ticket - QNAP Tutorials, FAQs, Downloads, Wiki - Product Support Status - Moogle's QNAP FAQ help V2
Asking a question, include the following
(Thanks to Toxic17)
QNAP md_checker nasreport (release 20210309)
===============================
Model: TS-869L -- RAM: 3G -- FW: QTS 4.1.4 Build 20150522 (used for data storage)
WD60EFRX-68L0BN1(x1)/68MYMN1(x7) Red HDDs -- RAID6: 8x6TB -- Cold spare: 1x6TB
Entware
===============================
Model: TS-451A -- RAM: 2G -- FW: QTS 4.5.2 Build 20210202 (used as a video server)
WL3000GSA6472(x3) White label NAS HDDs -- RAID5: 3x3TB
Entware -- MyKodi 17.3 (default is Kodi 16)
===============================
My 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Photos | My 2019 N. Ireland Game of Thrones tour
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

MrVideo wrote:... spend the money on eight drives that are at least twice the size of the unstated current drives...
8TB drives, bigger HDD are not an option.
MrVideo wrote:... Add the new drives and expand the RAID6.
Wait, what? It probably isn't what you've meant but now I've looked further into the QNAP Storage configuration and there is something called Volume resizing Wizard which seems to let me add drives to the existing RAID6. Is it really that easy (or possible at all) too add disc space to a static Volume?
Last edited by Race2018 on Fri Mar 23, 2018 5:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
dolbyman
Guru
Posts: 35032
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 am
Location: Vancouver BC , Canada

Re: expand static volume

Post by dolbyman »

how many disks do you currently have in your 8 bay unit ? you can only add disks into the unit itself , not to expansion units
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

dolbyman wrote:how many disks do you currently have in your 8 bay unit ? you can only add disks into the unit itself , not to expansion units
8, so it is not possible : :(
User avatar
dolbyman
Guru
Posts: 35032
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 am
Location: Vancouver BC , Canada

Re: expand static volume

Post by dolbyman »

no .. with expansion units you can only do separate volumes of add pools (as described above)
User avatar
MrVideo
Experience counts
Posts: 4742
Joined: Fri May 03, 2013 2:26 pm

Re: expand static volume

Post by MrVideo »

Race2018 wrote:
MrVideo wrote:... spend the money on eight drives that are at least twice the size of the unstated current drives...
8TB drives, bigger HDD are not an option.
Wild guess, since you never mentioned the size in the first post.
QTS MANUALS
Submit QNAP Support Ticket - QNAP Tutorials, FAQs, Downloads, Wiki - Product Support Status - Moogle's QNAP FAQ help V2
Asking a question, include the following
(Thanks to Toxic17)
QNAP md_checker nasreport (release 20210309)
===============================
Model: TS-869L -- RAM: 3G -- FW: QTS 4.1.4 Build 20150522 (used for data storage)
WD60EFRX-68L0BN1(x1)/68MYMN1(x7) Red HDDs -- RAID6: 8x6TB -- Cold spare: 1x6TB
Entware
===============================
Model: TS-451A -- RAM: 2G -- FW: QTS 4.5.2 Build 20210202 (used as a video server)
WL3000GSA6472(x3) White label NAS HDDs -- RAID5: 3x3TB
Entware -- MyKodi 17.3 (default is Kodi 16)
===============================
My 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Photos | My 2019 N. Ireland Game of Thrones tour
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

MrVideo wrote: Wild guess, since you never mentioned the size in the first post.
My mistake. Thanks for your advice. It was very valuable for an different reason. So I learned about the possibility of replacing drives with bigger ones in a running RAID. It seems like the QNAP software supports this even directly by a so called one by one replacement.

https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial ... ty-upgrade

I might consider that and add 12TB with a new expansion unit and the old 2TB drives formerly in my NAS. The only drawback seems to be that I can't merge both RAIDS into one pool right away 'till I replace the 2TB drives with bigger ones.
User avatar
MrVideo
Experience counts
Posts: 4742
Joined: Fri May 03, 2013 2:26 pm

Re: expand static volume

Post by MrVideo »

Ya, RAID capacity expansion. For some reason I was thinking that it couldn't be done with a static RAID, so never mentioned it. I got into my head regarding a 16TB limit, but since I didn't know that you had 8TB drives, i.e., over the 16TB limit, I just didn't think of it.
QTS MANUALS
Submit QNAP Support Ticket - QNAP Tutorials, FAQs, Downloads, Wiki - Product Support Status - Moogle's QNAP FAQ help V2
Asking a question, include the following
(Thanks to Toxic17)
QNAP md_checker nasreport (release 20210309)
===============================
Model: TS-869L -- RAM: 3G -- FW: QTS 4.1.4 Build 20150522 (used for data storage)
WD60EFRX-68L0BN1(x1)/68MYMN1(x7) Red HDDs -- RAID6: 8x6TB -- Cold spare: 1x6TB
Entware
===============================
Model: TS-451A -- RAM: 2G -- FW: QTS 4.5.2 Build 20210202 (used as a video server)
WL3000GSA6472(x3) White label NAS HDDs -- RAID5: 3x3TB
Entware -- MyKodi 17.3 (default is Kodi 16)
===============================
My 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Photos | My 2019 N. Ireland Game of Thrones tour
Race2018
Starting out
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 2:01 am

Re: expand static volume

Post by Race2018 »

Probably this is the wrong place to ask this Question, but anyway: Is the USB connection of an Expansion Unit safe? I connected two external USB drives to the TS-831X just to 'simulate' the speed of the system with an expansion unit as good as possible. At first I was impressed. File actions worked almost as good as with the TS-831X itself. But then came a few problems:

The TS-831X doesn't seem to 'like it' if USB drives are still connected when performing actions like (re)booting. I had a couple of 'fake', empty USB drives appearing still connected that way. They also couldn't be ejected. Only shutting down everything removed them. It didn't seem to cause problems but it felt odd anyway.

Also I have somehow managed to loose a file: I've moved some stuff from the TS-831X to an external drive using the QNAP file manager. I've also ejected the other drive during that moving. After the job finished I saw that I've got an error message that 1 file couldn't be moved but it was gone on the TS-831X and also was also not on the external USB drive. The file itself should have been ok, the TS-831X just finished monthly scrub.

I was kinda able to reproduce that when moving files from External to TS-831X. One file was missing but I didn't even got an error about it.

That really makes me wonder if an expansion unit is a good idea at all or are they working more reliable than manual actions with external USB drives?

I guess I could get another TS-831X instead of an expansion since it isn't that much more expensive. But I fear that might cause trouble to my LAN speed since both machines have to use it when performing actions between them?! Or is there a way to connect them directly (not using USB3 of course)?
User avatar
dolbyman
Guru
Posts: 35032
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:11 am
Location: Vancouver BC , Canada

Re: expand static volume

Post by dolbyman »

connecting two 831x via vjbod should be faster than an usb enclosure ..because the extra nas is not "dumb" so all managment/control/etc happens in the nas ...so full 1GbE could be achieced via ethernet


also qnap enclosures are handled differently than plain connected usb drives


also file station was always wonky when moving files..so better copy instead of moving
Post Reply

Return to “System & Disk Volume Management”