Unfortunately no one can be told what fun_plug is - you have to see it for yourself.
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like many other users of the 323, I started out with just one drive in the right bay and have run out of space. I need to add another drive into the left bay.
I can't seem to find a clean-cut answer on what the DNS will do f I just pop another drive in the left bay.
Will it just format the new (left bay) drive? Will it format the drives in both bays?
I think I have it currently set up as JBOD... although its been awhile and I can't remember. I'd be perfectly content with both disks showing up independently on the network, with the current drive as-is and the new one freshly formatted.
thanks in advance for any answers/feedback
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You cannot setup JBOD (as defined by D-Link for the DNS-323) on a DNS-323 with only one disk - in fact, if you have only one disk, you have no choice but to format as standard volume(s).
What is supposed to happen is that when you install the second disk, on the next power up, when you log into the web admin page the system will prompt you to format the new drive - however - several folk have reported that the unit formatted the wrong drive and that they lost their data, so I would suggest you either backup your data before starting (this is my preferred option) - or - remove the first disk before installing the second, and then reinsert the first disk after formatting has been completed.
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Thanks for the reply. that clears it up.
(Also, backups are a definite... I keep a spare 300gB drive in a USB enclosure just for backups of the important stuff)
Has anyone ever followed the second method and had the DNS 323 format the wrong drive? That is, if I remove the first drive, insert and format the second one, and then re-insert the first one, is there any risk of the DNS 323 deleting the data on my first drive?
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To the best of my knowledge, the DNS-323 will not format a drive without prompting - with firmware 1.04 the prompt includes the make/model of the drive (which is of very little use if you have identical drives) and includes an option to skip the format, so you should be safe - at least you have a "stop point" that will allow you to back out of the operation before data is lost.
I should also point out that I have seen the DNS-323 indicate that it will format one drive and then actually format the other - on one of the rare occassions that I was too lazy to delete the existing partitions on the "new" drive. To be honest, it was as much laziness as curiosity - I had seen reports here that it could happen but never personally experienced it.
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I just did a fresh backup and installed the new disk via the second method. (That is, I removed the old drive from slot 1, added the new drive to slot 2, formatted the new drive with dns 323 web interface, powered down, added the old drive back into slot 1)
Everything worked without issues. thanks for the input.
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You're welcome.
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Hi!
Unfortunately I was not smart enough to read this forum article before I started.
Recently I bought a new 1TB drive for my DNS-323. I removed both old drives and inserted the new one (into the right bay). I formatted the drive and copied back all data from my external backup device. Everything worked fine.
Now, I wanted to add one of the old drives (500GB) into the left bay. Formerly the disk was part of a RAID1 configuration, so I attached the drive to my PC and cleaned the partition table, created a new partition of 500GB size and formatted it ETX2.
Then, I powered down the DNS and inserted the freshly formatted drive into the left bay. I didn't remove the 1TB drive from the right bay. After powering up the device I was requested to confirm that the new drive (500GB) is about to be formatted. As the proper size was displayed, I confirmed.
During the formatting the wrong LED was blinking, namely the one of the right drive where the 1TB disk was inserted. The progress bar stuck at 94%. I rebooted the DNS and then...
I was requested to confirm that the newly inserted drive - the 1TB drive! - is about to be formatted. HELL!
Additionally, the right LED was now in red color, I think indicating an format error.
It turns out that although the proper drive details were displayed in the confirmation of the drive formatting, the WRONG DRIVE was formatted. I'm using FW 1.04 1/10/2008.
Fine, I have to set up the entire system again using my external backup... :-( took almost 24h last time.
Bernhard
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You got the DNS-323 drive LED to light RED??
I thought it could only do BLUE and AMBER and that all the reports of white, purple & pink were the different perceptions of the result of the blue & amber on at the same time.
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Yes, sorry, it was amber, not red. Some kind of mixture between red and blue. Seems to be a dual color LED.
Short update regarding the drives: The 500GB (that was formerly part of a RAID1 configuration) got its old contents back. It seems that my procedure (fdisk + mke2fs via ubuntu on the PC) did not erase the data entirely. After the DNS had "reformatted" it, the old data came back and is visible now on the drive.
Why the DNS destroyed the 1TB disk remains unclear. I'm currently rsync'ing the external USB disk back onto the 1TB drive. As soon as this is done, I'll format the 500GB drive "by hand" via telnet.
Bernhard
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Hi, I have a few questions, when you say right bay, is it the right side when you are looking from the front(power button) or rear(cables) of the box?
Currently, I have one drive which is in the left bay when you look from the front, and I would like to add a new drive, from what I read here, I can make the new drive a standalone drive, independent of the one that it's already installed. But can I make the new one Raid0 or Raid1 with the current one without formatting the old one? Do they have to be the same size?
This is from the changelog of the firware 1.05 from Dlink (http://www.dlink.com/products/support.a … 0#firmware):
"- Add option to re-configure the Hard Drive configuration as RAID 1 when installing the 2nd new Hard Disk"
What does it mean?
I'm using 1.04 at the moment tho.
One more question, what's the difference between disk redundancy and data backup? =S
Last edited by 5h4rk (2008-06-22 07:34:39)
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Left & right are looking from the front of the unit.
The change in fw 1.05 means that when you install the second disk, you have the option of creating a RAID1 array - there is a check box in the format window - essentially it formats the new disk and then copies the data across to it to synchronize the array.
With disk redundancy your data remains available in the event of a disk failure.
With data backup you can restore your data in the event of a disaster - think corruption, virus & accidental or deliberate deletion of data.
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Thanks fordom.
So for fw 1.05, if I have only one drive working and I add a new empty drive, I can make them RAID1? Does it format only the new drive or both of them? Is it safe?
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Yes - with 1.05, you can add the second disk, and it should just format the new disk and create a RAID1 array.
Is it safe? Well - it helps if the new drive is new, or at least has no partitions or data - and just to be safe, backup your data.
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Hi, sorry to bring this up again, I've just installed the new drive, do I need to install ffp in both drives? Thanks
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No, it only needs to be installed on the drive that it in the right hand bay when looking at the unit.
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I have a second drive that I would like to add using the "configure as RAID1 when adding second drive" option. The first drive is 150GB and the second drive is 1TB. How does the DNS-323 handle this. Is the 150GB set up as RAID1 and the remainder set up as a standard drive?
Thank you,
Chris
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In theory.
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What about in practice? Any one tried this?
The problem I have is the 130GB of files already on the first drive. Most of these files are backed up off site but it would take hours to recover them. I'll take the chance if I know someone has tried and had this work but perhaps I'm better off keeping the drives separate.
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In practice, the web admin has occasionally formatted the drive with data on it during a setup like this. I personally have do a large amount of testing with mdadm (the actual program used for setting up arrays) and I no longer use the web admin tool for setting up anything. If you have a reasonable amount of Linux skills, you can manually set up the RAID array with the assurance that you are only partitioning and formatting the drive you want it to.
Next question is why you want to go to RAID 1? Do you need the 150GB to be accessible 100% of the time? If you do not, you are probably better off using indvidual drives and making backups of your data. You have to determine this on your own.
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Thanks for your help. Since my knowledge is limited, I'm going to go the easier route. My plan was to use the 150GB to store family photos which are also backed up. Just thought that going RAID1 would provide additional protection but it probably isn't worth my trouble.
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ok just my 0,02€:
FW 1.05
i had 1 x 250GB drive with ffp installed and data on it, right bay from front.
purchased a new 1,5 TB drive added to the left bay.
i formatted the new one via the web interface -> it freezed at 94%
powered off, removed the 250 GB from the right bay, moved the 1,5 TB to the right bay, formatted again -> freezed at 94%
checked the drive, it seemed that formatting the drive was ok.
added the 250 GB back to the right bay, moved the other 1,5 TB to the left bay.
-> wham, 250 GB data lost, also checked via USB on another machine (xp + ifs ext2)
i have no clue what happened here ;-(
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It most likly formatted the 250 GB the first time around.
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I have a 1TG drive in the left bay and it is called Volume_1 by the DNS-323. The right bay has a 750 gig drive. It is Volume_2. The right bay was previously empty and I installed the 750gig drive and the DNS (1.04 firmware) asked to format the drive. Unfortunately it formatted the 1TG .
If I remove both drives and put in a new TG drive it will format it. However, what will happen if I then put back my old TG drive into the left bay? Will I lose everything on it again? It really isn't clear to me which drive gets labelled 1 and 2. It doesn't seem to depend on which side they are.
Can someone make some sense out of all of this? The DNS-323 is great but the labelling thing is far from clear and I don't trust its ability to format the correct drive.
philip
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Volume 1 and Volume 2 are not drive labels, they are share names of the Samba shares. They are not specific to which side a drive is in. Drive #0 is the right drive and drive 1 is the left drive. Typically, Volume 1 is assigned to the first drive you install and Volume 2 to the second drive. Putting drive in in the reverse order, or swapping things around can result in them being swapped.
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bq041 wrote:
Volume 1 and Volume 2 are not drive labels, they are share names of the Samba shares. They are not specific to which side a drive is in. Drive #0 is the right drive and drive 1 is the left drive. Typically, Volume 1 is assigned to the first drive you install and Volume 2 to the second drive. Putting drive in in the reverse order, or swapping things around can result in them being swapped.
Hmm...the TB drive I have is in the left bay with the fun plugin. It is sda according to the DNS-323 while the one in the right bay is device sdb. Here is the df result.
/dev/sda2 960404324 640800868 319603456 67% /mnt/HD_a2
/dev/sdb2 720553828 167194356 553359472 23% /mnt/HD_b2
What I would like to do is take the 750gig out and replace it with a new TB drive and have that new one formatted. Unfortunately the DNS-323 seems to select the drive to format in strange ways. I don't want raid or jbod. If I remove the TB drive and put a new drive in I assume it will be formatted. Can I then add the TB drive back in safely and if so could I even move it to the right bay?
When you say drive #0, does that have any special significance in Linux? I thought it was the device names (sdx).
Sorry to be so picky here but something strange is going on with the DNS-323 . I can see the order changing the share names. If that's all it does then I should be able to put the one I want to be Volume_1 in first and then the other?
philip
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