TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Printers, HDDs, USB/eSATA drives, 3rd-party programs
Post Reply
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

Hi.

So currently I have a TVS-663, which runs 6x WD Red 6Tb (EFRX). These are in Raid 5, and are running out of room.

I didn't have a spare $3k or so to invest in a new NAS with more drive bays, so when I saw the TR-004 I thought it's a good option for people like me to just want to extend their current NAS.

I also purchased the optional usb 3.1 gen 2 pcie adapter, so in theory it can run 10Gbps between my TVS and the TR-004, and purchased 4x WD Red 6Tb (EFAX) drives.

It seemed to work perfectly as a DAS when connected to my PC at first. So I went and connected it to my TVS.
My TVS became very sluggish, unresponsive at times even, and I couldn't work out what was going on with it. Disconnected, reconnected, brought it back to the PC several times.
Made sure it was in software control mode as suggested. But still no joy.

Then the last time I brought it back to the PC, it kept cutting in an out, and I could hear a hard drive trying to spin up, making a click and going back down. I knew that's not good!!
I found this was the 4th drive in the TR-004, and after removing it, and putting it in my pc's disk dock, the same thing happened there and it could not be initialised.

That will be RMA'd and isn't a big deal. I purchased another drive locally, and put it in. Seems to be fine now when connected to the TVS (no more sluggishness), so i guess the failed drive explains that one.

The thing is, I cannot seem to be able to get even the option to add it to my current raid. In Storage and snapshots, it finds the TR-004, but will not show any of the drives, except in the external storage area, where all drives are there and it will let me format them etc.
I can at this point also see them in File Station, and move data to and from individual partitions.

When you first open Storage & Snapshots, i am presented with a popup that says "unconfigured external raid enclosure detected', but even when you go through this it doesn't list any disks to allow me to add them...

What am I doing wrong?

What I want to do, and what I bought it for, was to temporarily move all the data on the TVS to the individual drives so that I can redo the raid array on the TVS to raid 6, then copy 1 drive of data back over, and add that drive to the pool on the TVS, which should leave me enough room to move the rest of the data back into the array, and finally add the last 3, then empty drives so i'll be left with 10 drives in the array, raid 6, and about 20Tb free.

I've attached screenshots to show what I'm talking about, can anyone help with how to make this happen?
TR004-1.jpg
TR004-2.jpg
TR004-3.jpg
TR004-4.jpg
TR004-5.jpg
TR004-6.jpg
TR004-7.jpg
TR004-8.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

Jesus... 192 views, no ones got an idea?

Help me out here guys?!?

I am wondering if it is perhaps the version of WD Red 6tb EFAX (newer version 256mb cache - variable speed) which is causing Storage & Snapshots not to see them.

See the WD 6Tb reds in the TVS-663 are EFRX (older version - 5400rpm [fixed] and 64mb cache).

Open to any idea's or input from QNAP Dev's on this product?

Cheers,
Dave.
User avatar
Moogle Stiltzkin
Guru
Posts: 11448
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:21 am
Location: Around the world....
Contact:

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by Moogle Stiltzkin »

disenter wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:29 pm Jesus... 192 views, no ones got an idea?

Help me out here guys?!?

Open to any idea's or input from QNAP Dev's on this product?

Cheers,
Dave.
Hi Dave,

the devs can only be reached at helpdesk, have to make a ticket if you haven't already
https://helpdesk.qnap.com/index.php?/Default


i don't have a tr-004 (so i can't really say since i don't have one to work with to answer your questions :( ), but there are people who have done reviews and added commentary about the tr-004 usage here if you're interested in glossing over

https://www.thestreamingblog.com/qnap-t ... re-review/

https://nascompares.com/qnap-tr-004-nas ... on-review/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG0Fhrczqj8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VU0Zjzkqc&t=812s


hope that helps :)
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
User avatar
storageman
Ask me anything
Posts: 5507
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:57 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by storageman »

disenter wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:29 pm Jesus... 192 views, no ones got an idea?

Help me out here guys?!?

I am wondering if it is perhaps the version of WD Red 6tb EFAX (newer version 256mb cache - variable speed) which is causing Storage & Snapshots not to see them.

See the WD 6Tb reds in the TVS-663 are EFRX (older version - 5400rpm [fixed] and 64mb cache).

Open to any idea's or input from QNAP Dev's on this product?

Cheers,
Dave.
You do know you cannot add the TR-004 to the existing pool, you can only create another pool/volume.
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

If that's true, then this is quite misleading in their marketing of it... and previous expansion modules did support this function, so of course since they are not saying specifically that you cannot, up front, then you expect that it can...

feeling quite ripped off.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

What ** me off most, is not the cost of the enclosure, as its relatively cheap, but I specifically chose to buy 4 more 6Tb drives to match the existing drives in my TVS-663 because I intended to join them all.

Had the fact that it apparently cannot expand the nas raid storage volume even though it says it can been made absolutely obvious, then if i had chosen to buy this unit anyway and use it as a separate storage volume, I would have bought larger drives for it!!!

Basically wasted $1500 .... thanks QNAP.
User avatar
storageman
Ask me anything
Posts: 5507
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 10:57 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by storageman »

I agree, it should have been made clearer at top of page not right at the bottom as below.
I don't think you're the first to be caught out by this and especially as all previous expansion units allowed you to add Raid groups to the existing pool.

https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/product/tr-004

Note:
1. The TR-004 does not support the following: the TS-128, TS-228, TS-131, TS-231, TS-431, TS-431U, and NAS models that cannot be updated to QTS 4.3.6 (or later).
2. The TR-004 can only be used as an individual storage pool or volume on the NAS. Its storage pool/volume cannot be combined into the connected NAS. NAS applications cannot be installed on the TR-004.
3. Drives can only be migrated from one TR-004 to another TR-004. The files and data stored on drives moved to/from a NAS (or another device) will not be recognized.
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

storageman wrote: Wed Jun 12, 2019 4:40 pm I agree, it should have been made clearer at top of page not right at the bottom as below.
I don't think you're the first to be caught out by this and especially as all previous expansion units allowed you to add Raid groups to the existing pool.

https://www.qnap.com/en-uk/product/tr-004

Note:
1. The TR-004 does not support the following: the TS-128, TS-228, TS-131, TS-231, TS-431, TS-431U, and NAS models that cannot be updated to QTS 4.3.6 (or later).
2. The TR-004 can only be used as an individual storage pool or volume on the NAS. Its storage pool/volume cannot be combined into the connected NAS. NAS applications cannot be installed on the TR-004.
3. Drives can only be migrated from one TR-004 to another TR-004. The files and data stored on drives moved to/from a NAS (or another device) will not be recognized.
Thanks. I'm glad I'm not the only one to see it this way. I am unsure how to push Qnap to make this fact more obvious to prevent more people being screwed like this.

I have engaged their support, but fairly much had someone quite literally learning about the TR-004 with me in doing so. Lots of "i think... " or "i don't think..."... as opposed to just telling me what it can or can't do, and how to go about it. Unfortunately not very helpful.

Thanks for the links, i looked at the first couple and they also appear to not actually know the product because both of them state that it can do raid 5 and 6. It cannot do raid 6, and they also both basically spout the same 'information' that is worded such that it makes it sound like it can be used to 'expand the nas storage pool'. Which it apparently can not.

I even just put it in raid 5 mode by dipswitches and storage and snapshots see's that, but still doesn't see the disks in it, except for in the 'external storage' part of it, where it then just see's a single volume, and allows you to format it.
Any other functions that it tries to do, it fails because it can't see the disks inside it.
It seems like the firmware and/or software is not really ready for release. But it can be used by dipswitch and just treated like external storage being plugged into your nas, yes. But that is all.

Even after flicking it back to software mode by dipswitch... no change. It recognised the already existing raid 5 array on it, and just provided exactly the same options as it had while in raid 5 by dipswitch mode, and unfortunately failed at everything else for the same reason.

But sure, I can read/write to it. Yippeee....

To bad I wanted to change it all to raid 6 because its getting to big to only have 1 redundancy (in my mind)... Now I can't because it would mean sacrificing 4 disks on 2 arrays, instead of 2 disks on 1 array - which is what i planned for.
wilsodg
Know my way around
Posts: 175
Joined: Mon May 20, 2013 12:34 am

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by wilsodg »

What we want is a TX-n00 that supports TB3. I looked into a Tx800 for my 872xt but in addition to the rather costly enclosure you then have to buy a TB3 to TB2 converter. I’ve given up waiting for a TB3 TX (which would do what the op wants) and just ordered a TR-004 for my QVR drives.
The price of the TR is good but it is pretty simple in what it can do.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
TVS-872XT with TR-004 and D800C
TS670Pro with UX500-P expansion
TS569Pro
maskenvn
First post
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:29 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by maskenvn »

disenter wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 12:25 pm Hi.

So currently I have a TVS-663, which runs 6x WD Red 6Tb (EFRX). These are in Raid 5, and are running out of room.

I didn't have a spare $3k or so to invest in a new NAS with more drive bays, so when I saw the TR-004 I thought it's a good option for people like me to just want to extend their current NAS.

I also purchased the optional usb 3.1 gen 2 pcie adapter, so in theory it can run 10Gbps between my TVS and the TR-004, and purchased 4x WD Red 6Tb (EFAX) drives.

It seemed to work perfectly as a DAS when connected to my PC at first. So I went and connected it to my TVS.
My TVS became very sluggish, unresponsive at times even, and I couldn't work out what was going on with it. Disconnected, reconnected, brought it back to the PC several times.
Made sure it was in software control mode as suggested. But still no joy.

Then the last time I brought it back to the PC, it kept cutting in an out, and I could hear a hard drive trying to spin up, making a click and going back down. I knew that's not good!!
I found this was the 4th drive in the TR-004, and after removing it, and putting it in my pc's disk dock, the same thing happened there and it could not be initialised.

That will be RMA'd and isn't a big deal. I purchased another drive locally, and put it in. Seems to be fine now when connected to the TVS (no more sluggishness), so i guess the failed drive explains that one.

The thing is, I cannot seem to be able to get even the option to add it to my current raid. In Storage and snapshots, it finds the TR-004, but will not show any of the drives, except in the external storage area, where all drives are there and it will let me format them etc.
I can at this point also see them in File Station, and move data to and from individual partitions.

When you first open Storage & Snapshots, i am presented with a popup that says "unconfigured external raid enclosure detected', but even when you go through this it doesn't list any disks to allow me to add them...

What am I doing wrong?

What I want to do, and what I bought it for, was to temporarily move all the data on the TVS to the individual drives so that I can redo the raid array on the TVS to raid 6, then copy 1 drive of data back over, and add that drive to the pool on the TVS, which should leave me enough room to move the rest of the data back into the array, and finally add the last 3, then empty drives so i'll be left with 10 drives in the array, raid 6, and about 20Tb free.

I've attached screenshots to show what I'm talking about, can anyone help with how to make this happen?

TR004-1.jpg
TR004-2.jpg
TR004-3.jpg
TR004-4.jpg
TR004-5.jpg
TR004-6.jpg
TR004-7.jpg
TR004-8.jpg
I got exactly the same issue on my TVS-863 with official firmware 4.3.6.0993. I was stuck with it a whole week, but today after trying beta firmware 4.4.1.0998, the TR-004 could recognize all 4 drives in Software Control mode and allowed me to create a RAID group and a separate Storage Pool. On the older firmware, TR-004 did not show the temperature of the enclosure, but it does on the 4.4.1 firmware. I think there are some bugs on the external RAID system in firmware 4.3.6 on TVS-x63 systems.
Courtney_LK
First post
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:48 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by Courtney_LK »

maskenvn wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:51 pm
disenter wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 12:25 pm Hi.

So currently I have a TVS-663, which runs 6x WD Red 6Tb (EFRX). These are in Raid 5, and are running out of room.

I didn't have a spare $3k or so to invest in a new NAS with more drive bays, so when I saw the TR-004 I thought it's a good option for people like me to just want to extend their current NAS.

I also purchased the optional usb 3.1 gen 2 pcie adapter, so in theory it can run 10Gbps between my TVS and the TR-004, and purchased 4x WD Red 6Tb (EFAX) drives.

It seemed to work perfectly as a DAS when connected to my PC at first. So I went and connected it to my TVS.
My TVS became very sluggish, unresponsive at times even, and I couldn't work out what was going on with it. Disconnected, reconnected, brought it back to the PC several times.
Made sure it was in software control mode as suggested. But still no joy.

Then the last time I brought it back to the PC, it kept cutting in an out, and I could hear a hard drive trying to spin up, making a click and going back down. I knew that's not good!!
I found this was the 4th drive in the TR-004, and after removing it, and putting it in my pc's disk dock, the same thing happened there and it could not be initialised.

That will be RMA'd and isn't a big deal. I purchased another drive locally, and put it in. Seems to be fine now when connected to the TVS (no more sluggishness), so i guess the failed drive explains that one.

The thing is, I cannot seem to be able to get even the option to add it to my current raid. In Storage and snapshots, it finds the TR-004, but will not show any of the drives, except in the external storage area, where all drives are there and it will let me format them etc.
I can at this point also see them in File Station, and move data to and from individual partitions.

When you first open Storage & Snapshots, i am presented with a popup that says "unconfigured external raid enclosure detected', but even when you go through this it doesn't list any disks to allow me to add them...

What am I doing wrong?

What I want to do, and what I bought it for, was to temporarily move all the data on the TVS to the individual drives so that I can redo the raid array on the TVS to raid 6, then copy 1 drive of data back over, and add that drive to the pool on the TVS, which should leave me enough room to move the rest of the data back into the array, and finally add the last 3, then empty drives so i'll be left with 10 drives in the array, raid 6, and about 20Tb free.

I've attached screenshots to show what I'm talking about, can anyone help with how to make this happen?

TR004-1.jpg
TR004-2.jpg
TR004-3.jpg
TR004-4.jpg
TR004-5.jpg
TR004-6.jpg
TR004-7.jpg
TR004-8.jpg
I got exactly the same issue on my TVS-863 with official firmware 4.3.6.0993. I was stuck with it a whole week, but today after trying beta firmware 4.4.1.0998, the TR-004 could recognize all 4 drives in Software Control mode and allowed me to create a RAID group and a separate Storage Pool. On the older firmware, TR-004 did not show the temperature of the enclosure, but it does on the 4.4.1 firmware. I think there are some bugs on the external RAID system in firmware 4.3.6 on TVS-x63 systems.
It cannot do raid 6, and they also both basically spout the same 'information' that is worded such that it makes it sound like it can be used to 'expand the nas storage pool'. Which it apparently can not.

I even just put it in raid 5 mode by dipswitches and storage and snapshots see's that, but still doesn't see the disks in it, except for in the 'external storage' part of it, where it then just see's a single volume, and allows you to format it.

Any other functions that it tries to do, it fails because it can't see the disks inside it.
disenter
Getting the hang of things
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:54 pm

Re: TR-004 as an expansion to your NAS

Post by disenter »

Courtney_LK wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:52 pm
maskenvn wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:51 pm
disenter wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 12:25 pm Hi.

So currently I have a TVS-663, which runs 6x WD Red 6Tb (EFRX). These are in Raid 5, and are running out of room.

I didn't have a spare $3k or so to invest in a new NAS with more drive bays, so when I saw the TR-004 I thought it's a good option for people like me to just want to extend their current NAS.

I also purchased the optional usb 3.1 gen 2 pcie adapter, so in theory it can run 10Gbps between my TVS and the TR-004, and purchased 4x WD Red 6Tb (EFAX) drives.

It seemed to work perfectly as a DAS when connected to my PC at first. So I went and connected it to my TVS.
My TVS became very sluggish, unresponsive at times even, and I couldn't work out what was going on with it. Disconnected, reconnected, brought it back to the PC several times.
Made sure it was in software control mode as suggested. But still no joy.

Then the last time I brought it back to the PC, it kept cutting in an out, and I could hear a hard drive trying to spin up, making a click and going back down. I knew that's not good!!
I found this was the 4th drive in the TR-004, and after removing it, and putting it in my pc's disk dock, the same thing happened there and it could not be initialised.

That will be RMA'd and isn't a big deal. I purchased another drive locally, and put it in. Seems to be fine now when connected to the TVS (no more sluggishness), so i guess the failed drive explains that one.

The thing is, I cannot seem to be able to get even the option to add it to my current raid. In Storage and snapshots, it finds the TR-004, but will not show any of the drives, except in the external storage area, where all drives are there and it will let me format them etc.
I can at this point also see them in File Station, and move data to and from individual partitions.

When you first open Storage & Snapshots, i am presented with a popup that says "unconfigured external raid enclosure detected', but even when you go through this it doesn't list any disks to allow me to add them...

What am I doing wrong?

What I want to do, and what I bought it for, was to temporarily move all the data on the TVS to the individual drives so that I can redo the raid array on the TVS to raid 6, then copy 1 drive of data back over, and add that drive to the pool on the TVS, which should leave me enough room to move the rest of the data back into the array, and finally add the last 3, then empty drives so i'll be left with 10 drives in the array, raid 6, and about 20Tb free.

I've attached screenshots to show what I'm talking about, can anyone help with how to make this happen?

TR004-1.jpg
TR004-2.jpg
TR004-3.jpg
TR004-4.jpg
TR004-5.jpg
TR004-6.jpg
TR004-7.jpg
TR004-8.jpg
I got exactly the same issue on my TVS-863 with official firmware 4.3.6.0993. I was stuck with it a whole week, but today after trying beta firmware 4.4.1.0998, the TR-004 could recognize all 4 drives in Software Control mode and allowed me to create a RAID group and a separate Storage Pool. On the older firmware, TR-004 did not show the temperature of the enclosure, but it does on the 4.4.1 firmware. I think there are some bugs on the external RAID system in firmware 4.3.6 on TVS-x63 systems.
It cannot do raid 6, and they also both basically spout the same 'information' that is worded such that it makes it sound like it can be used to 'expand the nas storage pool'. Which it apparently can not.

I even just put it in raid 5 mode by dipswitches and storage and snapshots see's that, but still doesn't see the disks in it, except for in the 'external storage' part of it, where it then just see's a single volume, and allows you to format it.

Any other functions that it tries to do, it fails because it can't see the disks inside it.
Sorry I took a long time to come back to you, but yes, 100% correct. Qnap were good enough to give me an RMA on this unit since it failed to do several other things that it should have been able to do as well.

I have since purchased a TVS-872XT and am just using my TVS-663 as a mule for the 872XT for now.

I will not buy another TR-004.
Post Reply

Return to “Hardware & Software Compatibility”