@AnttYager or @bashaar Quick question - I hope.
I currently have a 4x4 but don’t need to keep the data. I need a new NAS and would love to expand the PR4100 to say a 4x8 or 4x10. Do you know if I can just pull all 4 drives at once and just start with a new set of disks?
Thanks in advance.
yup. if you think you may need the old 4x4gb drive INFORMATION, then export the configuration as well as backup the data to another place … but if not … then power down the PR4100 … pull the drives (all 4 of them) … put your new drives in … then reconfigure a brand new RAID configuration (or whatever configuration works for your situation)
FWIW: I have read about some of the pitfalls that people have encountered with the drive replacement and expansion process on the PR4100 and I wanted to share what I ran into with respect to the drive replacement and volume expansion process. My goal was to replace the original drives in my PR4100 with larger drives and to NOT lose my data and to end up with the volume being as large as it could be (using all of the available space of the new drives).
First let me mention what I did:
I went from 4X4TB drives to 4X10TB drives on a PR4100 with upgraded ram (16 instead of the stock 4) . The ram upgrade was painless. I did read somewhere that a user had difficulty removing the cover to the unit , and so did I for a few seconds. It is a little harder to get off than one might think . Don’t know if I actually needed that additional ram or not … and probably never will.
As for the drives : I started from the left to the right. I took out the original 4TB drive from the bay on the left and replaced it with a new 10 TB drive. All went well for a few hours, but then I ran into a problem when the drive in bay 3 (call that drive 3) indicated that it was bad (with a red light on the front of the PR4100 ) . At that point I powered down the unit, let it cool down, took out the new drive that was in slot (bay) 1, and put the original drive back into slot 1. Thankfully drive 3 had come back to life so that drive 1 (the original drive) was able to be rebuilt and at that point the unit showed as operating properly. I did a fast disk check and all showed good. I suspect that drive 3 was near failure and had perhaps overheated ? Not sure . Anyway, I then proceeded to replace drive 3 with a new 10TB drive . That process went well, and then I continued with drive 1, drive 2, and drive 4. All showed good on on the home screen, but after replacing all four drives, the total capacity was still as it was originally.
So the next thing needed was to expand the size of the volume . I have read that others ran into a problem with that task, and here is a solution that is (was) hiding in plain sight from a lot of people (myself included) .
In the process of expanding the volume size those who have run into a problem probably missed the following : There is another screen that one encounters along the expansion drive process, and anyone with a problem has not posted it (that I have found) . I think some people think it is simply an informational screen. In Raid 5, once that you have replaced the original drives with larger drives , (one at a time , and waited for each drive to be rebuilt before changing the next drive), go to the home screen and click on “change raid mode” and then you progress through the screens making your selections along the way ( you want to leave the raid mode as raid 5, and you want to indicate that you are NOT changing your drives because you have already done that ) , you will come to a screen with a slide bar on it that you use to indicate how much of the new capacity you want to use to expand your volume . The problem is that it doesn’t look like a slide bar (or I didn’t recognize it as a slide bar ) and if you don’t slide that little blue indicator on the bar so that you move it to the right, and then you proceed with the drive expansion, you will end up with the same size volume that you started with . That is what I did the first time that I attempted to expand the size of my volume . I suspect that is the same mistake that others made as well. As I am writing this my PR4100 is in the process of the (correct) expansion process. I recall that two days ago I saw the screen that had the slide bar on it , but I didn’t slide the bar . A couple of hours ago the PR4100 completed the volume expansion process that I attempted the first time … and I ended up with the same size volume that I started with . I went through the steps again to expand the size of the volume and this time I recognized the page with a slide bar on it for what it was (a page with a SLIDE BAR on it that I had to slide to the right to indicate how much of the unused space I wanted to include in the size of the expanded volume) .
One final note : I saw that I also had the option to simply create a different volume using the unused space … I read about the positives and negatives of doing that, and with a raid 5 configuration and a one person user, it didn’t make sense to me to have more than one volume. Hope this answer helps .
Hello, I just found your post, and would like to clarify your process:
Would that be an accurate summary? Thanks.
Hello Andy
I’m in the same position as you. I want to increase the capacity of my PR4100, by changing from 4x 4TB drives, to 4x 8 or 10TB drives. I want to keep the same RAID set-up, and want to keep the data that is presently sitting on the 4x 4TB drives within the PR4100.
Have you completed the process that you outline in your post?
I’m seeing a real mix of experiences in this thread alone… and it’s making me slightly nervous about the potential for complete data-loss on the existing drives!
Hey!
I haven’t done this yet, but I have decided to try, and am hoping to purchase 4no. 14tb HDDs today or tomorrow. I will then proceed on the basis of my previous summary.
My “advantage” is that the data (about 20tb) on this NAS, whilst important, is not critical, so if a catastrophe does occur it won’t be the end of the world…
I am approaching it on the basis that it is a similar scenario to if a drive had failed in the RAID array. Remove 1 HDD and replace. RAID rebuilds, but in this case I would not benefit immediately from the additional capacity of the larger drive. I suppose that it would be possible at that time to run the “Extend” command on the single replaced drive. Not sure whether best to do that, or wait until all 4 HDDs are replaced to try the “Extend”.
Will try to report back once I have completed the process - I suppose a week or so…
Chase me to follow-up if you don’t hear back.
I’m very interested in how you get on… A video uploaded to YouTube would probably be really popular as well, for other nervous PR4100 owners that have been thinking about upgrading their capacity as well.
I entirely follow the logic of your previous post. My logic says that the extension process should be executed once all four new drives are installed and rebuilt - but this is where it is just a “best guess” for me - I can’t find any clear instructions from WD at all to complete a process that I would imagine that many owners would want to complete…
Good luck!
Sorry for the delayed reply.
I completed my “upgrade” some time ago, despite a couple of false starts - I had intended to buy 4no. WD Red Plus 14tb drives to replace the WD Red 8tb drives I was previously running. However, despite searching high and low with local vendors it became obvious that the 14tb Red Plus drives were no longer available. I then had to decide what drives to use instead, and I finally elected to use WD Ultrastar 18tb drives - I knew that there might be a slight increase in noise from these drives, but the three advantages were that I would gain even more drive capacity, and that these drives would likely be faster and operate at slightly lower temperatures.
So, having purchased the 4no. 18tb drives I embarked on the upgrade process. Beginning with Bay 1, I replaced each 8tb drive in turn with a new 18tb drive. After each there was a wait whilst the RAID5 rebuilt - estimates each time of 10-11hours actually turned out to be nearly 16hours for the first drive, reducing to 12 hours for the final drive - I’m not sure whether this duration of RAID rebuild time is dependent on the total size of the drives, or the amount of data to be processed.
All the way through this process the file system remain active and usable, and I was able to continue reading videos from the NAS - I only use the NAS as a video media server. However, I decided that I would not write any data to the NAS during the process.
Upon replacement of the 4 drives I was then ready to tackle the expansion part of the process. Despite knowing clearly from other users’ warnings, I failed to identify the “slider” bar during the setup of the expansion instruction, so had to wait more than 44 hours on the first “try” which resulted in no expansion due to my error.
The second attempt went as it should and expanded my total NAS capacity from 32tb to 72tb (a little less than 54tb usable under RAID5). Strangely this expansion on the second attempt took only 28hours.
The NAS has been running perfectly since, and I have been reading and writing data quite happily. The new 18tb drives are very slightly noisier, but not so bad as to be really problematic for me. The 4no. 8tb drives removed are now being “cleaned” and recycled for use elsewhere.
Waking up that thread as I’m about to get through that process. But I have one question : Once you’v upgraded the 4 drives. How do you erase the data on the 4 old drives once out ? I suppose there’d be an issue connecting it to another machine given the fact that it has a RAID 5 from the previous device ?
Update after my last message, as I just completed the upgrade. Fron 4 x 10TB WD Red, to 4 x 20TB WD Red. Exact same model, just larger capacity, didn’t want to take any chance (WD confirmed they were compatible) and I recommand everyone to do the same.
Did not have any backup as there’s too much data on it, so was hoping for everything to go well, and though that worst case scenario, removing a drive doesn’t remove the data on it :
Everything went smoothly and easily!
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