Expansion possibilities for EX4

WD’s expansion is not working … see this link:

  1. The expansion will transition your existing array onto larger capacity drives (and will require you to do this for all 4 disks - more below), but then will not expand them and in fact you will loose your entire array (!) at the end of the integration of the 4 drives and a reboot of the EX4. The initial part of the expansion (a rebuild of your existing array onto larger drives) can be duplicated if you have Auto Rebuild On, that is, you remove one of the disks and the system will report your array as degraded (assuming you have a 4-drive based Raid 5 array). However, you will accomplish nothing in the way of a utilization of the extra space of the new disk(s) - you will have a Raid 5 array of the same size with unused space on the disks.

  2. … (more below) … My advice is the following: 1. Back up your Entire EX4 onto a USB hard disk. 2. Order enough disks of the same size to create a larger Raid 5 volume. 3. Reformat the single large disk you now have integrated into your existing Raid 5 array. 4. Place all 4 new larger (empty) disks into the EX4 and create a Raid 5 array (empty). 5. Restore your files from the USB hard disk onto this new larger Raid 5 array.

  3. There may be something you can do with the extra space on the one drive larger drive, and you could perform all of the steps in 2. above to create a new Raid 5 array with 1 larger drive and 3 smaller ones, but I am not certain about this.

  4. To my knowledge, now that you have started this expansion - the only way to get out of it is to do either steps 2 or 3 above - you have to start all over using the steps outlined!

I hope all of the above is lucid and helpful - write back if not.