Increase storage on PR2100...help please!

Why is it so difficult to find this answer? I have the PR2100 and use this for a Plex server. I have 12tb in raid 1. I recently got a great deal on some 10tb red drives and want to install these into the NAS without losing any data.

Can I simply remove one of the current 6tb drives and replace with the 10tb drive? I understand I’d need to let this then copy files over but my concern is will it only allow 6tb partition or, when I then install the 2nd 10tb drive, will it recognize I now have 10tb avail in raid 1? Is this the best way to do the upgrade?

Yes the extra volume will become available after the 2nd drive has rebuild the RAID array.

Have they come up with a term for “fear of losing digital data” yet? I have that in a big way. I can have multiple backups of everything and still have anxiety about it.

Thank you for your help.

So, I upgraded the drives and all data copied over to both. I’m now showing a healthy volume on both but it is still only using 6tb of each for the volume. I want to add the additional 4tb on each drive to the volume. Is there a way to do this without deleting the volume? I would prefer to just add the additional storage space to the existing volume.

1 Like

I believe there is a button somewhere in the web GUI to resize your RAID array now.

If there is not, use SSH and type this

resize2fs -p /dev/md1

or when that complains, use a force resize.

resize2fs -fp /dev/md1

The raidMigrateRAID1ToLinear.sh script uses the same command.
If it still would fail, please provide output of

df -h

I took another look and sure enough there was an option (hidden in my opinion) to expand the volume. It was under change raid which was an area I didn’t want to venture but chanced it.

Thank you for your input. Looks like I’m reclaiming all the additional space now. Why it takes 10 hours to expand to the full drive is beyond me though.

1 Like

I have used this technique of swapping one disk, wait until stable, swap the other, wait until stable and reboot on a very old and obsolete Iomega IX-200, and it worked fine. I am about to try upgrading my PR2100 from 2x3TB RAID 1 to 2x8TB RAID1. It should work, and this thread tells me that I can. (I also put in a direct request to WDC support, THEN found this thread. All 3TB and 8TB drives are WDC Red.

Is there any reason that I should not upgrade my disk size on my PR2100 the “easy” way, as I note above?

I did end up upgrading my PR2100 to 2 x 10TB RAID 1 and it was fairly simple. I chose the least risky option which was to pull the drives and use as my backup while I installed the new drives. From there it was just copying my files back onto the NAS.

Thank you for your reply though. I couldn’t believe this NOOB question wasn’t easily answered somewhere but I searched everywhere for the answer to “will adding a new drive erase my files?” and couldn’t seem to find it. Being very new to the NAS thing I was worried.

Best wishes!

There is a process versus just “swapping the drives out”. If you do that, the NAS will still see that your “volumes” the same sizes as before even though you know the drives are larger. I have the PR2100 that I purchased with (2) 6 TB HD inside the unit.

Before you do anything else, I highly recommend that you navigate to your apps and turn off Plex so that noone is queuing the drive while you’re performing this.

  1. Open browser and login into your NAS.
  2. Click “Storage”.
  3. Make sure you have Auto Rebuild turned to “On”.
  4. Click “Change Raid Mode”.
  5. Select “Raid 1”
  6. Check the box labeled “Expand Capacity”, click “Next” and follow the instructions.

This entire process will take some time, so be patient! Took about 8 hours +/- to rebuild/expand the volumes for EACH drive.

It will tell you to start by swapping Volume 1 and it will start expanding the volume (and rebuilding it).

And yes, my data was intact through the entire process.

Hope this helps you and others!

2 Likes

There is a process versus just “swapping the drives out”. If you do that, the NAS will still see that your “volumes” the same sizes as before even though you know the drives are larger. I have the PR2100 that I purchased with (2) 6 TB HD inside the unit.

Before you do anything else, I highly recommend that you navigate to your apps and turn off Plex so that noone is queuing the drive while you’re performing this.

  1. Open browser and login into your NAS.
  2. Click “Storage”.
  3. Make sure you have Auto Rebuild turned to “On”.
  4. Click “Change Raid Mode”.
  5. Select “Raid 1”
  6. Check the box labeled “Expand Capacity”, click “Next” and follow the instructions.

This entire process will take some time, so be patient! Took about 8 hours +/- to rebuild/expand the volumes for EACH drive.

It will tell you to start by swapping Volume 1 and it will start expanding the volume (and rebuilding it).

And yes, my data was intact through the entire process.

Hope this helps you and others!

i’m trying this, and i’m just wondering how i know if it is working. i’ve followed the steps as outlined, and from the images i attached, you can see that the system says “expanding” though there is no status bar or anything to know that it’s actually making progress.

if i click on the disk status, it does now show disk 1 = 14tb, disk 2 = 6tb, the issue is that on the RAID screen, next to “expanding” it still says “insert new drive”. so does this mean it is not recognizing the drive i inserted, even though it seems to be able to tell that it is a 14tb drive? i just can’t tell at all if i need to wait because the process is moving forward, or if it is not doing anything because it’s waiting on me to insert the drive still.

@Chris_horner whatever happened with your upgrade? did you wait it out and it simply rebuilt the array?

i am about to hot swap a 10TB in there to replace a 6TB and would like to know if there isn’t anything else to do other than having to probably manually re-size the drive to claim the extra free space

thanks!

i’m actually still in the middle of the process. I eventually got the PR2100 to accept the first new drive, and rebuild that half of the raid, but then it says “insert drive 2” and when i do, nothing happens. WD customer support couldn’t figure it out, and told me the new drive i bought must be faulty. so i ordered a replacement and send that one back, and the replacement had the exact same problem (what are the odds of getting 2 defective drives shipped to me in a row?), so later today, i’m supposed to get a third new drive (from a different supplier in case the other place just had a whole bad batch), and i’ll see if it finally works.

one thing that i didn’t see in the help portal here, but once i have the new larger drives in the NAS and running, and i have the 2 old ones out, there’s not really any way to clear/reformat the old ones so i could sell them, they’re stuck with all my data on them. guess i have to take them to some computer repair place and ask if they can reformat for me.

Howdy - I’m also trying to upgrade my NAS and looking for info. What drives did you use? I looked at the list of “compatible” drives, and most of them are WD Red, which use SMR, which I’m trying to avoid if possible. However, I’m nervous about trying a Seagate or other type of “non-compatible” drive and having the NAS refuse to integrate the disks.

Did you ever get Disk 2 to activate?

I ended up determining that the drive I bought was defective, I got a second one, also defective somehow, then finally a third from a different supplier this time, and upon inserting the new drive it just built the raid and started working again. I used WD Red Pro drives since that was what I was replacing and I knew they were compatible with my NAS.

Thanks - I have another dumb question. Do I format the drive before sticking it into the NAS, or just take it straight out of the packaging and putting it in the PR2100?

if it’s a new drive and doesn’t have any old data that needs to be erased first, you can stick it straight into the NAS.

I am about to do this on a PR2100 with 4TB of RAID1 (i.e two 4TB drives at RAID1)

I have data backed up.

So just to be absolutely clear;

  1. Stop Apps
    2.Swap first drive - it will rebuild but volume will not be stretched to new size.

And now the question - Do I then swap drive2, and wait till I have two drives not expanded, BEFORE expanding the RAID config. Or do I do 1-drive, then expand RAID size, then add second drive?

Thanks.

Expand can only be done after ALL the new drives are in place.

HI There

Coming in “late” to this conversation, but I have also been wanting to update from 12TB drives with RAID 1 (so total 6TB Mirrored) to 24TB (2x12TB). I’ve read through most of this thread and see that I can remove one drive and replace it with a larger drive (as long as I have Autorebuild on, which I do. However I have missed any step by step instructions…and am wondering what the exact steps are… For example? Am I to power down the WDPR2100 BEFORE REMOVING ONE OF THE DRIVES? Also, if 2 drives with Raid 1, does it matter which drive comes out first?