DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

ms · 2007-10-04 20:46:33

I have a DNS-323 with two 320gb drives installed and configured as RAID 1. The unit has been behaving oddly lately and I'm concerned enough after a miserable failure of my Netgear NAS that I want to change this over to jbod and run rsync between the disks. I have copied all the data off the DNS to an external drive already.

What I want to know is can the RAID 1 mirror be split while preserving the data? It would be nice to break the mirror and then pull one drive. Use the other drive to upgrade the firmware to 1.03. Then put the removed drive with the data back in and copy it over to the reformatted upgraded non-RAID disk. I just wondered if anyone has done this already.

Also, has anyone been using rsync with the DNS using the --backup option to do incrementals? If so, could you post your command line?

Thanks much,

-mark

fickle · 2007-10-08 01:19:23

you cant split a raid (at least not with this device) as it only maintains one logical partition. the 323 does not offer making multiple partitions under a single logical volume

mig · 2007-10-08 06:17:19

ms

I have not done this before, but your approach seems sound. IIRC, the information about the raid is kept in the file /etc/raidtab.
If you use mdadm commands to "fail" one of the raid disks, you should be able to upgrade the firmware and format one of the disks as jbod.
The DNS-323 *should* have no knowledge of a raid setup (no /etc/raidtab), when you add the old-mirror disk back into the system it *should*
be mounted as /dev/sdb1. If this doesn't work, you always have your external drive backup.

I'm pretty sure the firmware upgrade happens to the flash memory (not to any specific disk) then at startup the system files are copied
out of flash memory to the local hard disks.

How was the DNS "behaving oddly lately" that raised this concern?

Last edited by mig (2007-10-10 07:41:33)

mig · 2007-10-10 07:41:17

I've been doing some more reading and it turns out, mdadm does NOT use /etc/raidtab for the raid configuration. I'm not sure why this file exists
on the DNS-323?? I examined a Fedora 5 system with a mdadm raid1 and there was no /etc/raidtab file. In order to add your "old-mirror" disk
back into the system you may(?) have to do something like mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sdX since I think the raid information is contained on the
individual drives. More information can be found about mdadm at http://man-wiki.net/index.php/8:mdadm or searching the web.

Last edited by mig (2007-10-10 07:42:11)

DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

Announcement

#1 2007-10-04 20:46:33

Breaking the mirror and upgrading to 1.03

#2 2007-10-08 01:19:23

Re: Breaking the mirror and upgrading to 1.03

#3 2007-10-08 06:17:19

Re: Breaking the mirror and upgrading to 1.03

#4 2007-10-10 07:41:17

Re: Breaking the mirror and upgrading to 1.03

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