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

devotee · 2010-08-02 14:43:02

I own a CH3SNAS with firmware version 1.05 (12/31/2008) with 2x ST31000340AS drives (individual volumes). Now that 2TB drives have affordable prices, I was thinking of upgrading the device with 2x 2TB drives. I've been reading a lot, googling a lot, searching a lot, and I still have several questions (and a headache).

1. The latest available firmware for the CH3SNAS seems to be 1.05.b05 and it's more than a year old. Is this firmware discontinued? Should we expect a new firmware in the future? Since the DNS-323 firmware (by D-Link) seems to be frequently maintained and updated, would it be possible to crossflash the CH3SNAS with the latest (1.08) D-Link firmware. Would Alt-F, the custom/alternative firmware, work on the CH3SNAS? Is it reliable enough?

2. I plan on using 2x WD20EARS (2TB, 64MB cache) drives but I've read a lot about the "Advanced Format Align", "4k clusters size format" and so. I've also seen several workarounds, but I don't know if they only work on the DNS-323 or if they would work on the CH3SNAS. I'd go for 2x WD20EADS (2TB, 32MB cache) to save me from the trouble, but I like what's being said of the EARS models about temperatures (they are cool) and performance (when properly formatted the performance is almost like the Caviar Black with big files).

3. What would you suggest? 2x WD20EARS drives or 1x WD20EARS and 1x ST32000542AS? I'm not a big fan of Seagate since the "Barracudagate" but mixing two models/brands of drives is more likely to avoid both of them dying at the same time. Since I'll use the drives as individual volumes, my idea is to perform regular backups (cp+rsync) from a volume to the other.

4. My upgrade steps are: 1) remove drives, 2) upgrade firmware to latest one (either Conceptronic or D-Link depending on answer to question 1), 3) plug the new 2TB drives, 4) format (might need some tweaking for the advanced format align and the 4k clusters size thing), 5) plug the old disks using a USB case to the NAS and copy the old data. Does it seem good enough? Am I forgetting something?

Thanks in advance for your help!

oxygen · 2010-08-02 16:33:57

devotee wrote:
I own a CH3SNAS with firmware version 1.05 (12/31/2008) with 2x ST31000340AS drives (individual volumes). Now that 2TB drives have affordable prices, I was thinking of upgrading the device with 2x 2TB drives. I've been reading a lot, googling a lot, searching a lot, and I still have several questions (and a headache).

1. The latest available firmware for the CH3SNAS seems to be 1.05.b05 and it's more than a year old. Is this firmware discontinued? Should we expect a new firmware in the future? Since the DNS-323 firmware (by D-Link) seems to be frequently maintained and updated, would it be possible to crossflash the CH3SNAS with the latest (1.08) D-Link firmware. Would Alt-F, the custom/alternative firmware, work on the CH3SNAS? Is it reliable enough?

2. I plan on using 2x WD20EARS (2TB, 64MB cache) drives but I've read a lot about the "Advanced Format Align", "4k clusters size format" and so. I've also seen several workarounds, but I don't know if they only work on the DNS-323 or if they would work on the CH3SNAS. I'd go for 2x WD20EADS (2TB, 32MB cache) to save me from the trouble, but I like what's being said of the EARS models about temperatures (they are cool) and performance (when properly formatted the performance is almost like the Caviar Black with big files).

Using 4k sector drives is not a problem with units like the DNS-323 or CH3SNAS. i wrote serverals posts here in the forum why ...

3. What would you suggest? 2x WD20EARS drives or 1x WD20EARS and 1x ST32000542AS? I'm not a big fan of Seagate since the "Barracudagate" but mixing two models/brands of drives is more likely to avoid both of them dying at the same time. Since I'll use the drives as individual volumes, my idea is to perform regular backups (cp+rsync) from a volume to the other.

... but, mixing 4k sector drives and 512 bytes sector drives in a RAID can lead to unexpected results i guess (i have a scenario in mind, which will screw it), i would not recommend that.

4. My upgrade steps are: 1) remove drives, 2) upgrade firmware to latest one (either Conceptronic or D-Link depending on answer to question 1), 3) plug the new 2TB drives, 4) format (might need some tweaking for the advanced format align and the 4k clusters size thing), 5) plug the old disks using a USB case to the NAS and copy the old data. Does it seem good enough? Am I forgetting something?

that should work.

devotee · 2010-08-07 21:41:22

oxygen wrote:
Using 4k sector drives is not a problem with units like the DNS-323 or CH3SNAS. i wrote serverals posts here in the forum why ...

I've searched your posts and from what you say the bottleneck is in the CH3SNAS hardware, not in the drives. What I'm going to do is make several Bonnie++ tests to check the performance I hacve right now with 2x ST31000340AS. If after installing the new drives and test their performance again there's a significant loss of speed, then there might a problem. I might expect a little performance loss (the drives I have now are 7200rpm), but that's why I said "significant", the drives should really be very slow (comparing to the old configuration) to consider there's a performance loss.

I've also noticed that the WD20EARS have a jumper to override the advanced formatting stuff, would it be better to use it, or just plug them and use "as is"?

oxygen wrote:
... but, mixing 4k sector drives and 512 bytes sector drives in a RAID can lead to unexpected results i guess (i have a scenario in mind, which will screw it), i would not recommend that.

I won't use them in a RAID configuration. In fact, I've never used the RAID features of the CH3SNAS, I've read too many horror stories in the forums, and I like more the regular rsync backup from drive to drive (I also might buy an external 2TB USB drive to make another copy out of the CH3SNAS).

Since I won't be using the RAID in the CH3SNAS, it might be interesting to use different brand or models of 2TB drives. Mixing a Seagate drive and a Western Digital. I've always though that using two identical drives (same brand, same model, same manufacturer location, same manufacturing date/batch) is dangerous, as they are more likely to die at the same time (if used under the same conditions). But, again, I'm not a big fan of Seagate and I don't know if not using 2 EARS drives would affect the temperature and noise.

oxygen wrote:
4. My upgrade steps are: 1) remove drives, 2) upgrade firmware to latest one (either Conceptronic or D-Link depending on answer to question 1), 3) plug the new 2TB drives, 4) format (might need some tweaking for the advanced format align and the 4k clusters size thing), 5) plug the old disks using a USB case to the NAS and copy the old data. Does it seem good enough? Am I forgetting something?
that should work.

What about the firmware? It's still not clear if it's possible to crossflash the CH3SNAS with the DNS-323 firmware, has someone been able to do it?

BTW, thank you very much for your help

tricipitinus · 2010-08-25 23:24:43

I have my CH3SNAS flashed with the DNS-323 firmware (long time ago actually) - since uysing several FW updates from dlink without any problems
(you can't just flash the CH3SNAS diretly with the dlink fw as far as I remeber...you have to do some small sidesteps before you can do it but don't worry, it all works fine!)

I'm havin the exact same problem right now with upgrading from 2x705 gig to 2x2TB (samsung EcoGreen F3) - it somewhat more complicated since I have a Raid-1 setup

tricipitinus · 2010-08-26 00:27:33

question to anyone:

would the following procedure work?

1. I take out both old 750gig drives (with data on it) out.
2. I insert both 2TB drives and let the dns323 format them.
3. I take the right 2tb drive out and insert one of my 750gig.
4. I config them as 2 seperate drives and copy all the data from the 750gig drive to the 2tb drive within the nas
5. I take out both drives and insert the data-filled 2tb drive into the right slot and the formatet 2tb drive in the left slot
6. I config them as raid1 hoping that the left will mirror the right and not the other way around

Isildur · 2010-08-26 00:56:23

It will reformat drives when you select RAID.

fordem · 2010-08-26 01:20:41

Assuming DNS-323 firmware

1. Take out both old 750gig drives (with data on it) out.
2. Insert one 2TB drives and let the dns323 format it.
3. Insert one of my 750gig.
4. Copy all the data from the 750gig drive to the 2tb drive within the nas
5. Remove the 750gig drive & insert the second 2tb drive
6. When prompted to format the second 2tb drive, check the box for RAID1.

tricipitinus · 2010-08-26 21:51:38

any other way to copy data fast from one drive to the other without using funplug and some linux console command?

fordem · 2010-08-26 23:39:21

Remove both drives, connect them to a PC, and make the transfer there.

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

Announcement

#1 2010-08-02 14:43:02

CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#2 2010-08-02 16:33:57

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

devotee wrote:

#3 2010-08-07 21:41:22

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

oxygen wrote:

oxygen wrote:

oxygen wrote:

#4 2010-08-25 23:24:43

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#5 2010-08-26 00:27:33

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#6 2010-08-26 00:56:23

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#7 2010-08-26 01:20:41

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#8 2010-08-26 21:51:38

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

#9 2010-08-26 23:39:21

Re: CH3SNAS Hard disks upgrade: a nightmare?

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