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

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#1 2009-04-23 18:34:17

Trimble Epic
New member
Registered: 2008-04-08
Posts: 3

Question about adding a drive

If my DNS323 has 2 drive already in it, each .5 gig, how to I upgrade one of them?

If I buy a 1 gig drive, can I pull out one drive, put in the new one, format the new one, move files from the .5 still in the unit to the new 1.0, then pull out the .5 and put in the other .5 and be good to go?

or do I need to backup the whole thing and restore it somehow?

Trimble

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#2 2009-04-23 23:28:46

luusac
Member
Registered: 2008-04-29
Posts: 360

Re: Question about adding a drive

whatever you do, backup your files, and verify the backup to make sure the data is good.  There have been many instances of people reporting that the dns323 has formatted their 'old' drive which contained data when the web interface was showing that it would format the 'new' drive and they have as a result lost their data.  I believe this is still happening with the latest firmware.  You didn't say in your post what your drive configuration is - standalone, raid 1 etc

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#3 2009-04-23 23:33:41

fordem
Member
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1938

Re: Question about adding a drive

Is it RAID, JBOD or separate volumes?

If RAID0 or JBOD - you'll have to back it up, and I would strongly suggest a change of drive configuration.
If separate volumes, I would remove both disks, install and format the new drive, shutdown and install one of the two old drives and transfer the data, and then swap the second old drive in.

If RAID1 - you'll need two new drives - you have a couple of different options here, I would suggest you backup, swap the new drives in and create the new RAID array and restore, but, you could also skip the backup step, and remove both drives - connect one to a PC running either linux or Windows with the ext2ifs file system driver, verify that you have access to the data - and then install the new disks and create the new RAID array and restore the data.

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#4 2009-04-23 23:33:52

Trimble Epic
New member
Registered: 2008-04-08
Posts: 3

Re: Question about adding a drive

Sorry, my config is no raid, just two physical drives mapped to one volume each.

So, let me add this to my question - if I were to pull out BOTH drives, insert a NEW drive, format it...   Next, insert the drive I want to copy from, do the copy, then pull out the drive I just copied from, and insert the other drive that I want to keep... Will the DNS-323 properly re-mount the drives even though it had been pulled out?

In my current setup, I have two .5 tb drives, and I'd like to pull out one and replace it with a 1.0 or 1.5 tb drive, then stick the used .5 tb drive into my wife's actual desktop machine to upgrade her from .250 tb.

Trimble

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#5 2009-04-24 04:40:06

fordem
Member
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1938

Re: Question about adding a drive

It's been my experience, with standard volumes, that the unit does not seem to mind if the drives are swapped in and out.

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#6 2009-04-24 05:36:37

talkingRock
Member
Registered: 2009-03-26
Posts: 100

Re: Question about adding a drive

I managed to create a duplicate backup with the following procedure.

login
copy fun_plug and necessary ffp, opt or debian files from volume1 to volume2
make sure permissions are 777 where they need to be.
shutdown


Remove both old drives
Insert new drive in the left bay
reboot
bring up the web interface and format the new drive
shutdown
place old drive  in right bay
reboot
logon and copy data from old drive to new drive.
shutdown

repeat with second (new,old) drive pair.

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#7 2009-05-22 01:22:20

iccoffee
New member
Registered: 2009-05-22
Posts: 3

Re: Question about adding a drive

I'm about to do this.. just wondering if anyone knows if the problem is fixed in 1.06?  I've only got one 500gb drive in there at the moment and I intend to replace it with two 1TB drives.  So i'm thinking I'll take the 500gb out.. put the two 1TB in, format, take one of the 1TB out and put the 500gb back in, transfer data then put the other 1TB back.. hopefully this will be the best way tro go about it.  Any advice is appreciated.

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#8 2009-05-22 01:59:17

luusac
Member
Registered: 2008-04-29
Posts: 360

Re: Question about adding a drive

if the problem you are referring to is the 323 formatting the wrong drive then no, I don't believe that it is fixed in f/w 1.06.  f/w 1.08 which is still in beta (I wouldn't recommend that you upload it on a production system until long after it is on public/general/production release) has some sanity checking in terms of drive serial number before a format is performed.  There are threads here about f/w 1.08.  If you meant a different problem, sorry I didn't have time to read the old thread again.

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#9 2009-05-22 02:13:14

iccoffee
New member
Registered: 2009-05-22
Posts: 3

Re: Question about adding a drive

Thanks luusac - Yes - the problem with wrong driving being formatted is what I am talking about, thanks for confirming its still an issue as far as we know.

One other question - if I format my two new 1TB drives as JBOD is there a problem with removing one to put the old 500gb back in to copy data across.  Alternatively if I format the two 1TB drives as standard, can I convert them to JBOD later on when data exists on them?

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#10 2009-05-27 01:26:17

iccoffee
New member
Registered: 2009-05-22
Posts: 3

Re: Question about adding a drive

As a followup to my post..  Over the last weekend I took the 500gb drive out of my DNS323 and inserted two 1TB drives.  I then formatted each drive as standard (I would have preferred JBOD, but I don't think I have the option of doing that if I then wanted to pull one of the drives out).  Anyway after formatting both 1TB drives, I pulled one of the 1TB drives out and re-inserted the 500gb.  The DNS recognised it without a problem.  I then copied all the data over, removed the 500gb, and re-inserted the 1TB and its all up and running again.

Ideally I'd like to have the system converted to JBOD, but there appears to be no way to do that without reformatting, so I'll have to live with what I have.

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#11 2009-05-27 22:44:32

fordem
Member
Registered: 2007-01-26
Posts: 1938

Re: Question about adding a drive

iccoffee - I'm curious - why is it that you want a JBOD configuration so badly?

Personally I see very little reason to use JBOD or RAID0 - all it allows you is a single volume with a storage capacity equal to that of the two disks, which would only seem to be an advantage if you had a dataset larger than a single volume, coupled with the disdvantage of a drive failure causing a loss of all of your data.

To my mind, the potential gain is not worth the potential pain.

And now the disclaimer - before someone decides to take me to task ....

On this device I have personally tested and know that ...

a - RAID0 offers no perfomance advantage and failure of either disk will immediately cause the data to be unavailable
b - failure of either disk in a JBOD configuration will cause the data to become unavailable, even if the data is on the remaining "good disk", you will lose access to it after the first reboot, if it was on the disk that failed, you will lose access to it immediately.

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