DIY NAS with Expandable RAID?

TheLegendOfMart · 4 Dec 2013 at 14:53

My Readynas is starting to chug with all the apps and plugins I have installed so I want to repurpose the HDDs into an actual PC with more processing power. I know I will lose everything on the HDDs but I am going to back up what is on them anyway.

I use X-RAID2 which is Netgear version of FlexRAID whereby you have one parity drive and you can switch out or put an extra HDD in to expand the RAID without deleting the array.

I was looking at FreeNAS but I don't think it has expandable RAID with Z-RAID1, I also looked at FlexRAID and UnRAID but I really don't want to spend $100 just for an OS.

Are there any free OSes that I can configure via web control panel that support expandable RAID while only using one parity drive?

Confused · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:23

I'm running a box with Windows Home Server 2011 and StableBit DrivePool

WHS gives the ability to backup PCs across the house (has saved me a few times), and DrivePool gives me total flexibility with how I configure the drives in my system, being able to add/remove them as I want, as well as being able to specify which folders I want to be duplicated across multiple disks, so that I can more efficiently use my available disk space.

For example, I have my Photos folder and Documents folder duplicated across multiple physical disks, but my Videos folder (which is DVD/Bluray rips) isn't - I can easily re-rip the DVDs, but I can't replace my family photos should I have a disk failure.

OhEsEcks · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:30

Not sure if this is any help to you.

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Volumes#Replacing_Drives_to_Grow_a_ZFS_Pool

TheLegendOfMart · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:39

I looked at Windows Home Server but all the drive pooling only supports file replication, I'd rather lose 1 drive to parity than having half the space available.

Having a quick skim through the FreeNAS link replacing hdds is handy but would prefer to just add drives to the array and it grow instead of replacing HDDs that are already in.

OhEsEcks · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:45

TheLegendOfMart said:
Having a quick skim through the FreeNAS link replacing hdds is handy but would prefer to just add drives to the array and it grow instead of replacing HDDs that are already in.

I think that's what that does. You can add drives, or replace existing ones (with larger ones) to grow the pool either way. I've no experience with it though. Just heard about that functionality.

Try asking in the servers and enterprise sub forum, those guys will more than likely know exactly what it is you need and are looking for.

TheLegendOfMart · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:48

Just installed it in a VM, looks like you can add hdds to the array but you cant grow the volume without destroying it and recreating it.

Confused · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:52

TheLegendOfMart said:
I looked at Windows Home Server but all the drive pooling only supports file replication, I'd rather lose 1 drive to parity than having half the space available.

I suggested this as an option if you don't *need* to have everything duplicated - rather than losing a 3TB drive purely to parity, I've only lost the size of my duplicated folders from the available space available (currently, that's a couple of hundred GB)

OhEsEcks · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:53

TheLegendOfMart said:
Just installed it in a VM, looks like you can add hdds to the array but you cant grow the volume without destroying it and recreating it.

What format is your current RAID in? That might be why it's destructive, formatting the entire volume to ZFS or whatever. Whereas, once that's done, the only destructive run will be on new disks that are added to format to ZFS.

As I say though, I'm no expert.

TheLegendOfMart · 4 Dec 2013 at 16:56

Confused said:
I suggested this as an option if you don't *need* to have everything duplicated - rather than losing a 3TB drive purely to parity, I've only lost the size of my duplicated folders from the available space available (currently, that's a couple of hundred GB)

It's a pain to have to rerip 100's of blurays from disc if the whole array fails so losing a drive to parity is preferable.

OhEsEcks said:
What format is your current RAID in? That might be why it's destructive, formatting the entire volume to ZFS or whatever. Whereas, once that's done, the only destructive run will be on new disks that are added to format to ZFS.

As I say though, I'm no expert.

I created the array in ZFS, you can add to the array so the total available space is increased but you cant grow the volume you created when you originally created the array.

*edit* Had another mess around, you can add new HDDs and include them in the array and then grow the volume but the disc you added doesn't count towards parity you are just basically adding a standalone HDD.

I don't understand why it is so difficult to have a plug and grow array like all the Readynas, Synology, Drobo, etc..

TheLegendOfMart · 4 Dec 2013 at 21:14

Just in case someone finds this post in google, look up Xpenology, you can roll your own DIY NAS but using Synology software and get all the benefits such as Hybrid RAID.