QNAP, RAID5, additional Drive

[DQ]

SHENANIGANS! I am eating up drive space left and right. I am not low on space yet but I was thinking of adding a drive to my NAS before it gets to that point.

It APPEARS I can do it but I wanted to see if I can confirm with someone that has done it. On a QNAP NAS can you just add an additional disk to a RAID5 array without rebuilding the entire array?

Thanks!

 

[DQ]

No replies? Come on, I know you guys have NAS's! You whip out your storage sizes like an internet epeen all the time. Yea yea, mine is small I get it, but that's why I am asking about adding another drive. Help me feel more like a man and verify my size increase method!

This is all I have to go on right now.
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/knowledge-base/article/how-to-expand-capacity-by-adding-a-drive

 

[Ghildebr]

No replies? Come on, I know you guys have NAS's! You whip out your storage sizes like an internet epeen all the time. Yea yea, mine is small I get it, but that's why I am asking about adding another drive. Help me feel more like a man and verify my size increase method!

This is all I have to go on right now.
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/knowledge-base/article/how-to-expand-capacity-by-adding-a-drive

Unfortunately I am not a lot of help here. I also read the article that you referenced above. To me it looks like that it will work but in reality I have never actually successfully done it. I have been in IT for over 40 years and have done many successful RAID5 expansions on both server's and NAS's. I am certain that it can be done. Unfortunately I have not actually done one on a QNAP and that is kind of the gist of your question. Both QNAP's I have purchased I bought enough drives to fill them up from the initial purchase. Sorry...

 

[DQ]

Unfortunately I am not a lot of help here. I also read the article that you referenced above. To me it looks like that it will work but in reality I have never actually successfully done it. I have been in IT for over 40 years and have done many successful RAID5 expansions on both server's and NAS's. I am certain that it can be done. Unfortunately I have not actually done one on a QNAP and that is kind of the gist of your question. Both QNAP's I have purchased I bought enough drives to fill them up from the initial purchase. Sorry...

Thanks for the info. I am with you, it seems possible but I was just trying to confirm. I do appreciate your info. Thanks!

 

[RedFox 1]

Even though I am old and retired, there is no way I can ever watch the number of movies I have on my computer, no QNAP, just WD Gold Mechanical Hard Drives in drive bays a 6TB and a TB, and a few 1TB SSDs. I have this bad habit of falling alseep in the middle no matter how good the movie is. LOL

 

[hart2hart]

I did it on a QNap ((for a friend) many years ago and it worked. The issue is there was lots of data movement to balance the array so somewhat fearful of the very thing raid 5 is to prevent — data loss. Made me want to back it up first lol.

I long ago bought synology not to say it’s better.

 

[DQ]

Even though I am old and retired, there is no way I can ever watch the number of movies I have on my computer, no QNAP, just WD Gold Mechanical Hard Drives in drive bays a 6TB and a TB, and a few 1TB SSDs. I have this bad habit of falling alseep in the middle no matter how good the movie is. LOL

You make a solid point my friend. That and LOL

 

[DQ]

I did it on a QNap ((for a friend) many years ago and it worked. The issue is there was lots of data movement to balance the array so somewhat fearful of the very thing raid 5 is to prevent — data loss. Made me want to back it up first lol.

I long ago bought synology not to say it’s better.

Yes, I figured it would take some time and move a lot of the data which I was not looking forward too but hearing someone say it worked makes me feel better. And yes I always keep a backup ! Thanks for the reply.

 

[cartman0208]

I can't help with QNAP, because I'm totally into Synology.
They have their own RAID implementation (SHR for Synology Hybrid RAID) which basically is RAID1 for 2 disks and RAID5 for 3 or more.
But it's better than RAID5 because it can work with different sized disks.
Last thing I did: move 4TB disks from a 2bay system into a 4bay and then extending by 2 12TB disks.
I didn't even think of backing up existing data, because I just trust that migration ... which was done with some clicks and a lot of waiting for parity calculation.

 

[DQ]

I can't help with QNAP, because I'm totally into Synology.
They have their own RAID implementation (SHR for Synology Hybrid RAID) which basically is RAID1 for 2 disks and RAID5 for 3 or more.
But it's better than RAID5 because it can work with different sized disks.
Last thing I did: move 4TB disks from a 2bay system into a 4bay and then extending by 2 12TB disks.
I didn't even think of backing up existing data, because I just trust that migration ... which was done with some clicks and a lot of waiting for parity calculation.

I went back and forth between QNAP and Synology. In the end I liked the QNAP hardware better but it was close. They are both good.

 

[Balor]

Raid has no advantages for NAS devices at home, only disadvantages.
Raid only costs money and time unnecessarily.
Just use standard volumes here and always make the backups.

 

[cartman0208]

Raid has no advantages for NAS devices at home, only disadvantages.
Raid only costs money and time unnecessarily.
Just use standard volumes here and always make the backups.

- Costs money, with that I agree ... safety is always more expensive, I don't have a problem with that
- Costs time? How is that?

 

[cartman0208]

... In the end I liked the QNAP hardware better ...

Can you go into detail?

 

[Balor]

safety is always more expensive, I don't have a problem with that
- Costs time? How is that?

RAID is not safety!
This is always mixed up or misunderstood.
Only a backup to a completely different external HDD, discs is safety, but never RAID.
Time? Well, have fun. If an HDD in a large RAID fails, then your RAID is not available for at least a few days or even up to a week!
Often the other HDDs in the raid also become still errors and it is not possible to restore the volume. This means that all data on the raid is irretrievably lost!

 

[cartman0208]

RAID is not safety!
This is always mixed up or misunderstood.
Only a backup to a completely different external HDD, discs is safety, but never RAID.
Time? Well, have fun. If an HDD in a large RAID fails, then your RAID is not available for at least a few days or even up to a week!
Often the other HDDs in the raid also become still errors and it is not possible to restore the volume. This means that all data on the raid is irretrievably lost!

You should clearly read more about what you are talking about...
With my RAID5 I have the safety, that one disk can crash and I lose nothing ... I just replace the disk with a new one (or if I feel bold, I wait till my disk returns from RMA), let the RAID rebuild and be done with it ... all while my data is still usable
No idea from where you got that nonsense about non-availability during the rebuild ... must be a crappy build
And for a large RAID I would never rely on 1-disk-parity but 2 or more with hot spare ... but that's out of scope for home use

BTW... all my data is backed up to another NAS, with ... guess what ... RAID5

Back to your recommendation to use standard volume ... what would you use in a 4bay NAS?
One volume JBOD?
Or just one volume for each disk?

What would happen if one disk fails here? Or because you are a lucky guy, SMART tells you one disk will fail soon? How do you handle that?

 

[DQ]

Raid has no advantages for NAS devices at home, only disadvantages.
Raid only costs money and time unnecessarily.
Just use standard volumes here and always make the backups.

This is simply incorrect.

RAID (1 on up) allows you to lose a drive (1 or more) and not lose your data or have to restore it.

Yes, there is a trade off because it does cost more and it does add complexity. So you exchange those to have more data redundancy.

You cannot hold a large collection on multiple single drives without breaking it up or adding complexity so that you can treat it as a single volume. In my case I was using RAID0 to combine the space and backing up the data. The danger there is RAID0 is negative redundancy and I started to have PC issues (I was using PC RAID) and it kept dropping drives out of the array which would destroy the array and the data. So I ended up having to restore the data each time which took several hours. And I thought to myself, you know, eventually you will trip over a bad backup and restore won't be possible and you could lose all the data.

So I bought a NAS to hold multiple drives AND to run RAID 5. Which I still also back up.

 

[Balor]

You should clearly read more about what you are talking about...

This is simply incorrect.

I know what I am talking about!
Raid is no safety and no backup.
Just a tip, especially for Nas device beginners.
Keep using your Raid, it's all good!
I hope the "RAID HDDs death" never happens to you!

Back to your recommendation to use standard volume ... what would you use in a 4bay NAS?
One volume JBOD?

NO, 4x standard volumes, JBOD ist the same problem how RAID.

Or just one volume for each disk?

Correct!

What would happen if one disk fails here? Or because you are a lucky guy, SMART tells you one disk will fail soon? How do you handle that?

The answer is simple. Backup software is used to back up to another external HDD (or another NAS device).

You cannot hold a large collection on multiple single drives without breaking it up or adding complexity so that you can treat it as a single volume.

???
I have my data on 12 individual HDDs (Standard volumes) in a NAS device and other HDDs and discs for backups!
Data management with TMM and Kodi, Plex etc. is very simple and not confusing or complex.

 

[cartman0208]

I know what I am talking about!
Raid is no safety and no backup.

I got it, we won't convince you otherwise, RAID is voodoo, keep believing in your truth

I work in IT for over 10 years, I've seen a lot of failed disks in RAID devices, never with data loss ... I must be very lucky

The answer is simple. Backup software is used to back up to another external HDD (or another NAS device).

Since this is only half the answer I will help out here:
-Your disk is defective and you need to replace it
-From the point where you take the disk offline (or is failed, depending on your luck) you cannot access your data
-Since typical backup software does not store the backed up data in the same format as it originally was, you have to wait for the restore to complete to have access to your full data.

That correct so far?

So who uses the time consuming system again?

 

[Balor]

I work in IT for over 10 years,

No, Raid is not a vooduu.
But Raid is also not a backup!
An IT professional knows that.
Sorry, but I never wanted to convince anyone.
As already written, was only a tip for home user and not for the IT business!
Feel free to continue with NAS device and Raid.

I've seen a lot of failed disks in RAID devices, never with data loss ... I must be very lucky

If you are an IT professional, you know how long it takes to rebuild an array.
All HDDs are used over a long period of time.
If now still further HDDs of the array fail (Probability is very high the larger the array), then it was with the rebuilding of the Raid array.
But you know that even as an IT professional!
Good luck with RAID on Home Nas devices.

 

[cartman0208]

...
But Raid is also not a backup!
An IT professional knows that.

I never said otherwise.
As I wrote, I backup all my data additional to using RAID... you must have missed that.

...
If now still further HDDs of the array fail (Probability is very high the larger the array), then it was with the rebuilding of the Raid array.

Yep, that's what Spare disks are for

Lets just sum up here:
RAID is for high availability, meaning you can access your data even with a broken disk
... which you cannot if you have to restore from backup first.
If you don't need that kind of HA, stick with single disks
PLUS: do backps in any case


@DQ
You wanted to explain why you ended up with QNAP