After a very difficult search (they are not even available on the WD store) I found compatible hard drives to expand a 4 Gb DX4000 (2 Gb with RAID1) to 8 Gb (6 Gb with RAID5)
I already discovered that with DX4000 you have no control whatsoever on the RAID configuration, but at least I hoped that the RAID1 to RAID5 rebuild would have been done automatically. This is also what the administration manual says. Please note the disks are correctly recognized by dashboard monitor as empty disks, all the LED blinks when accessing the NAS.
The reality is that I tried on both our two DX4000 units and even after some reboots, waiting >24hours, nothing happens. WD support reported that if the automatic rebuild will not start the only solution is to perform a complete recover. Which means of course reconfiguring everything from scratch (the process with 2 disks lasts almost half a day, I wonder how will it last with 4 disks) and loosing all the saved data.
Is it really possible this NAS has no other way to expand its capacity rather than a complete recovery? I admit we never had such difficult experiences with any other NAS we tried and installed in our company (for sure in terms of RAID configuration as well as drive compatibility).
I tried leaving one disk only a whole night and nothing started automatically. At page 4 of the administration manual among the “key features” is reported the following:
Easy maintenance: Replacing one of the pre-installed drives, or adding a new drive, is as easy as changing a light bulb. Just open the door and swap out the drives. WD Sentinel does the rest. It seamlessly migrates the server to the appropriate RAID level and automatically expands the server’s storage capacity.
A problem like in our company would be rated as a major not compliance.
As suggested by WD supported I tried with “recrate storage” which did not work showing an error soon after forcing the USB pen boot . I solved the issue in this way:
Via the INTEL RAID control sw I configured the system from Raid 1 to Raid 5 exploiting all 4 disks (i.e. the 2 existing ones + the 2 I bought after a painful search to expand the sytem). The process took many hours.
Then I used the Intel control panel to expand from 2 to 6 Gb the virtual disk size. This process also took many hours, almost one fully day probably.
At that point I had my Sentinel DX4000 fully exploiting the new drives with Raid 5. The only drawback was that for some reasons the LED of the DX4000 soppted blinking soon after OS booting (this is generally what happens according to the manual when the DX4000 is reconfiguring the RAID). This actually was only an estetique problem
To sort it out I had to go through a “Recovery” with the virtual DVD by selecting the option to maintain the DX4000 data. This needed of course to fully reinstall the operating system but my data was still there and the LED are now blinking.
So I solved the problem to expand the DX4000 from 2 Gb RAID 1 (2 disks) to 6 Gb RAID5 (4 disks) on a DIY basis, loosing lof of time both for the expansion process (which should have been automatic)
As general comment and considering the DX4000 is still sold on online shops, I find frustrating, having bought two units few moths ago, having discovered all the limitations in terms of drive compatibility but also inherent expandibility. I.e. it is not even possible to use a DX4000 unit sold with 2Gb unit with 4Gb compatible hard drives (i.e. they are seen as 2 Gb). At least this restriction should have been clearly reported.
I see since almost two years the software development has been completely abandoned. I am quite sure some sw improvements on the Dashboard might have at least relieved some of the initial design problems, the unit itself has for sure some potential to exploit. But now it is almost not even possible to find the expansive expansion hard drives (for sure not on the WD store).
Glad you got it sorted. Yes this is an old product and nothing is being done to update it. They have newer models like the DX4200 that are not as pickey about what hard drives you use.
I have been hunting that Intell software for another project. I saw that link in my search but just looked at the top link and thought iot was just drives. Sweet. Thanks !!
The very interesting thing is that with Intel RST raid driver you have full compatibility with other drives other than the expansion kit (in addition to decent RAID configuration capabilities). Even if after lot of troubles I managed to buy the WD expansion kits (which are no more available even in the WD shop) I tried for curiosity to insert as 3/4 disk the WD NAS hard disks I bought at the very beginning thinking I could have used them as expansion disks (they differ just for the last p/n digit besides for being much cheaper - of course they did not work with the standard install). With the RST drive they work nicely, you can configure the RAID (0/1/5) both by Windows (e.g. you can also create a RAID 0 drive with the 3/4 drive) or from the Intel manager. The data on the disk were perfectly readable even if they were written on another workstation.
The drawback of using the Intel RST Raid driver is that the LEDs do not blink anymore (who cares after all) but more annoying is the fact that the fan runs always at full speed. This might be annoying in a home environment. Of course this is an off-nominal configuration, but I had to find myself this solution to be able to migrate from RAID 1 to RAID5 which WD expansions kits, a process that according to the “key features” of the admin manual, should have been fully automatic.
This also means that DX4000 with simple software upgrades might probably have been made a little bit more user friendly in terms of RAID configuration as well as drive compatibility.
As far as I was able to test, the pros of using the RST driver are better than the cons. You have full control on the RAID status and RAID configuration, you know exactly what is happening (e.g. at which stage the RAID rebuild is for instance). And of course you can also use, at least for disks 3/4, any type of hard disk. The cons are that all the LEDs remain off and that the fan speed seems not controlled anymore (which is not a problem at all in an office environment).
The other interesting thing is that case of need you can revert to the old RAID driver: After having used the RST driver to expand my system from RAID1 (2 disks) to RAID5 (4 disks), with the WD recover I managed to reinstall W2008 with the old drivers keeping all the data. I.e. for sure the RAID5 format is fully compatible (of course using the WD expansion disks).
