RAID set-up assistance with PR4100

davys · June 8, 2017, 6:44pm

#1
Hello guys,

If anyone can offer any assistance I’ll be very grateful - I’ve just set up my first NAS, a Western Digital My Cloud PR4100 12TB (4x3Tb).

I’m a photographer, and my plan was as follows: set up drives 1 & 2 as RAID 1 - this would be for my client files (weddings, conferences, family shoots etc), so that I’d always have a copy in the event of a crash. Drive 3 was going to be a standalone drive (JBOD?) which would hold all my RAW files after each shoot, and Drive 4 would also be standalone and act as my Time Machine back up.

However now that I have installed the drives and gone through the set up process, all the drives appear to have been set up as RAID 1, split into volumes 1 & 2. I’m now unable to see any option to have drives 3 & 4 working as separate RAIDS.

Am I missing something obvious, if so please let me know, or is the PR4100 unable to be set up as I would like? I’d also appreciate any advice as to whether there’s a better strategy re-set up for what I was planning to do. I’m a novice, and I thought the way I intended to use the drives mentioned above would be the easiest way for me to keep track of things.

Thanks in advance for any assistance offered!

Best,
David

AlexJ_WD · June 8, 2017, 9:54pm

Hi @davys,

It sounds like you’re asking for a “mixed RAID” - unfortunately, this is not a feature of the My Cloud P4100 today. Sorry! But seeing interest in this functionality is great to know for our product and engineering teams.

Here is what I would recommend to accomplish your goals with your PR4100:

1.) Set up your PR4100 in RAID 5 (which should be the default configuration). This will give you a good balance between performance and protection.

2.) I recommend you create different volumes within the RAID to replicate the functionality you have here…a volume for CLIENTS, a volume for RAW files, and a volume for TIME MACHINE. This is not what you originally had in mind (as you’d have everything in one RAID), but bear with me! There is a method to my madness!

3.) To have redundancy for your RAW files in particular, you can plug in an external USB drive (like a 3TB My Passport) into the back of the My Cloud PR4100. Within the My Cloud web dashboard, you can set the files in your RAW volume to automatically backup over USB to the My Passport on a schedule.

(and, with this method, you can also unplug the My Passport with your RAW files and move it between sites/computers very easily)

4.) Regarding Time Machine - you can restrict how much capacity is dedicated to this functionality. (See page 73 here) So, even though you cannot dedicate a single drive to this, you can still make sure it does not consume all your capacity. Alternatively, you also can set this to be to a USB backup (using one of the two USB ports out the back).

I hope this helps a bit to accomplish your goals - and thanks again for the feedback on how you would use a mixed RAID!

Alex

davys · June 8, 2017, 10:54pm

Hey @AlexJ_WD,

Many thanks for your very speedy response, it’s truly appreciated. You’ve certainly given me something to think about and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t do as you suggest. In fact, I can think of one - I’m truly a noob when it comes to setting up a NAS!

Purely for my own clarity and to help settle my mind, I hope you don’t mind if I come back to you with what are probably very basic questions:

Given the set-up that I’ve started with (RAID 1 on Volumes 1&2), am I correct in saying that I am currently working with 6TB of space (even though there’s 12TB across 4x3TB drives?). If so, I’m not using my resources well at all.
Is it right to assume that all files I save to the PR4100, given the current set up, will go to drives 1&2 (Volume 1), and use that space until full, then start saving to drives 3&4 (Volume 2)? This will help me understand what’s going on!
I’ve just spent over £800 on the PR4100, and want to find the best workflow all on this NAS if possible - I’m not keen on spending another £200 on an other external drive at the moment! (although I notice I can buy the My Passport X for £130 - this will have to be a stealth purchase in case my partner finds out).
I’m happy to reset the drives to RAID 5 if that’s what you recommend - I’m only a few days in with the current configuration I mentioned in my opening post, so if I set it back to default configuration it’s no big deal, I just want to ensure that I start my WD life by making the best use of the resources. If I opt for RAID 5, does this give me the full 12TB to fill up?
If I opt for RAID 5 and a drive dies on me, from what I’ve read, it’s just a case of slotting the new one in and things continue seamlessly as before with no lost data anywhere? Is that a correct assumption?
And if I opt for RAID 5 and the set up you suggest, is it an easy and clear process to set up the volumes for Clients, Raw & Time Machine - as I said, I’m a complete newb and if it’s not straight forward I will do something horribly wrong and probably brick my new toy!

Thanks again for any assistance and advice you can offer, I’m very appreciative! Have a great day Sir!

Best wishes,
David

AlexJ_WD · June 8, 2017, 11:44pm

Happy to help, @davys !

Let me answer your questions/thoughts in the same order:

1.) Yes, you could be getting 9TB of usable space with a RAID 5 (which spreads 3 drives’ worth of data over 4 drives; so, if one drive fails, you have no interruption of service and you can also “rebuild” the RAID)

NOTE: If you choose to move to RAID 5, I highly suggest you select “auto-rebuild” in the settings. This way, in case of a failure, the My Cloud PR4100 will recreate your array when a new drive is inserted.

2.) I think you need to deliberately tell it to write files to Volume 1 (D1&D2) today, but it’ll depend on your setup. Also note that if D1 and D2 fail, the data in Volume 1 will be lost - you only have one disk of redundancy per volume with this setup.

3.) Right - the other alternative (and this is a bit trickier) is you could buy a 3.5" hard drive enclosure, remove 1 drive from your current system and plug it in via USB, and then just use that one as your external backup.

BUT, if you do this, you’ll have only 3 disks and then lose the ability to do RAID 5, and you’ll have to instead do RAID 1 (which will limit your usable space to around 3TB across 2 different drives, which was your original plan I think). My Passport X 2TB will definitely get the job done, though.

4.) RAID 5 will give you 9TB of redundant storage (per Q #1). For the 4-bay, I would recommend RAID 5 (9TB, stored across 4 drives; 1 drive can fail and your data can survive) or RAID 10 (6TB, stored across 4 drives, but you can survive having 2 drives fail)

5.) Correct

6.) Also correct - but (and I apologize if I mis-spoke before), in RAID 5 you would create “Shares” to accomplish this. See page 37 here : https://www.wdc.com/content/dam/wdc/website/downloadable_assets/eng/user_manual/4779-705142.pdf

Hope this helps - let us know if there is anything we can clarify!

Alex

davys · June 9, 2017, 6:52am

Hello @AlexJ_WD

Thank you for your patience and thorough explanation, I think I’ve got a handle on this now.

I’m going for your RAID 5 recommendation and will hopefully find some time to do this over the weekend - I’ve not transferred many files to the unit yet so I’m not worried about re-setting the device - it’s good to get things right from the start. Adding the extra Passport X now seems a small extra price to pay for peace of mind and to get the recommended set-up.

Thanks again for your assistance and quick responses - it’s truly appreciated. Have a great weekend!

Best wishes,
David

AlexJ_WD · June 9, 2017, 3:55pm

Great to hear, @davys - happy I was able to help! Have a great weekend!

davys · June 13, 2017, 5:59pm

Hey AlexJ_WD
Just thought I’d check in and report back…thanks to your great advice and guidance detailed above, I managed to set up the PR4100 the way you recommended and, amazingly, at the first time of asking with no faffing about!

Thanks again Sir, have a virtual beer on me!

IMCPhotog · September 20, 2017, 3:36pm

Hi AlexJ .

I was happy to see this post and wanted to complete this setup. However, when I called WD technical support I was told this was not possible. If they are incorrect and there is a way to do this who could I get at WD to assist me or do I just need to contract with someone to this?[quote=“AlexJ_WD, post:4, topic:207971, full:true”]
Happy to help, @davys !