Questions about setting up.

[Atif]

I have a DNS-320 with alt-F v1.0 on it.

I also have two drives 500GB and 640GB. formatted as NTFS, one of them already has data on it.

I want to set them up in a JBOD config without having to erase it.

I read that Alt-F can perform a JBOD setup without erasing a disk but the 'Expand' options in Filesystem is greyed out.

How do I set it up in JBOD without losing data? Trying to run the wizard and it tells me that disks will be formatted in ext filesystem.

Some other questions:

1. If I start with one disk in JBOD, can I add the second one later have the JBOD config just integrate it?

2. In JBOD, if one disk goes bad, will I be able to recover data or lose it?

3. If I want to upgrade one of the disks, will I be able to move data to one disk assuming it has space and then replace without having to recreate from scratch?

4. What's the difference between JBOD and RAID0 ? Is it that in the former the disks are written to one at a time while in the latter it's both at the same time?

[Joao Cardoso]

On Saturday, June 27, 2020 at 1:51:03 AM UTC+1, Atif wrote:

I have a DNS-320 with alt-F v1.0 on it.

I also have two drives 500GB and 640GB. formatted as NTFS, one of them already has data on it.

Backup the data in the NTFS formated disks. NTFS is not linux native, although Alt-F supports using it *as is*.

 

I want to set them up in a JBOD config without having to erase it.

You can't, with NTFS not that I know of.

 

I read that Alt-F can perform a JBOD setup without erasing a disk

Where did you read that? I would have to think about it and carefully set it up. In theory. 

 

but the 'Expand' options in Filesystem is greyed out.

Yes, lukely there is not a bug in the webui there allowing it.

 

How do I set it up in JBOD without losing data? Trying to run the wizard and it tells me that disks will be formatted in ext filesystem.

Yes. NTFS *as is*. Ext2/3/4 very carefully from the command line and I don't advise dong it. Disk order maters for JBOD, at least in the initial setup.

 

Some other questions:

1. If I start with one disk in JBOD, can I add the second one later have the JBOD config just integrate it?

I don't think so.

In theory yes, but it depends on the 'mdadm' version. mdadm is the program that manages RAID, and the Alt-F version is a old one.

 

2. In JBOD, if one disk goes bad, will I be able to recover data or lose it?

Data in the "first" disk is "easily" recoverable if the second disk fails; data in the second disk is difficult to retrieve if the "first" fails.

For the next questions, my answer is: I don't recommend you to use JBOD.

Your disks are of different capacities, probably with a different age, different manufacturers and models, one of them is going to fail before the other, and you will be in trouble and will have to resort to the command line; you are not an expert and nobody is going to help you without factual details that aren't available when one of the disks fails and you can't supply technical information about the setup.

[João Cardoso]

On Saturday, 27 June 2020 03:27:51 UTC+1, Joao Cardoso wrote:

On Saturday, June 27, 2020 at 1:51:03 AM UTC+1, Atif wrote:

I have a DNS-320 with alt-F v1.0 on it.

I also have two drives 500GB and 640GB. formatted as NTFS, one of them already has data on it.

Backup the data in the NTFS formated disks. NTFS is not linux native, although Alt-F supports using it *as is*.

 

I want to set them up in a JBOD config without having to erase it.

You can't, with NTFS not that I know of.

 

I read that Alt-F can perform a JBOD setup without erasing a disk

Where did you read that? I would have to think about it and carefully set it up. In theory. 

 

but the 'Expand' options in Filesystem is greyed out.

Yes, lukely there is not a bug in the webui there allowing it.

 

How do I set it up in JBOD without losing data? Trying to run the wizard and it tells me that disks will be formatted in ext filesystem.

Yes. NTFS *as is*. Ext2/3/4 very carefully from the command line and I don't advise dong it. Disk order maters for JBOD, at least in the initial setup.

 

Some other questions:

1. If I start with one disk in JBOD, can I add the second one later have the JBOD config just integrate it?

I don't think so.

In theory yes, but it depends on the 'mdadm' version. mdadm is the program that manages RAID, and the Alt-F version is a old one.

I checked the Alt-F shipped mdadm manual page regarding growing JBOD, and it says one can create a JBOD with a single disk and latter grow it:

For create, build, or grow:
      -n, --raid-devices=
             Specify  the  number of active devices in the array. (...)  Setting a value of 1 is prob‐
             ably  a mistake and so requires that --force be specified first.
             A value of 1 will then be allowed for linear,  multipath,  RAID0
             and RAID1.

Yet, I would experiment it first with expendable data on the disk.

I would use 'ntfsresize' to shrunk the NTFS filesystem first, then create the JBOD starting with only it and using mdadm metadata version 0.90 or 1.0 (which uses the disk end for the RAID metadata, preserving the NTFS fs metadata)

With this working, I would try the JBOD grow to a second disk and afterward enlarge the NTFS filesystem using 'again ntfsresize'.

In theory, and it is not supported by the webUI (vfat and NTFS are explicitly forbidden to be resized)

[Atif]

Thanks for the update.

So you mean to say I can shrink the NTFS, create a JBOD array and expand the NTFS on the JBOD array

OR are you saying that I can shirk the NTFS and create an ext4 JBOD array?

When you said 'enlarge the filesystem using 'ntfsresize ' is throwing me off

I can experiment with it. i don't have important data on it and don't care if it gets lost

Edit: I realize that I'm not trying to do RAID per so, I'm just trying to SPAN over disks.

Would LVM be more useful in doing that?

Does alt-F have LVM?

Thanks

[João Cardoso]

On Saturday, 27 June 2020 20:04:00 UTC+1, Atif wrote:

Thanks for the update.

So you mean to say I can shrink the NTFS, create a JBOD array and expand the NTFS on the JBOD array

Yes, but(*)

 

OR are you saying that I can shirk the NTFS and create an ext4 JBOD array?

No

 

When you said 'enlarge the filesystem using 'ntfsresize ' is throwing me off

Yes, I have never done it, and it is quite old. You can however do it on a windows box.

I can experiment with it. i don't have important data on it and don't care if it gets lost

You didn't say that at in the first post, by the contrary! If you can dispose-off the data, start with a clean setup, using native ext4.

 

Edit: I realize that I'm not trying to do RAID per so, I'm just trying to SPAN over disks.

Yes. You don't know what you want to do? Why don't you state what your problem is, and not how do you think how to do it? It's called the xy problem. Avoid technical jargon if you don't understand it, otherwise people assume that you know what you are talking about. When I go to a medical doctor, I tell him that 'my stomach hurts', I don't tell him that 'I have a stage II nitroimidazole resistant staphylococcus in the stomachus' :-)

 

Would LVM be more useful in doing that?

Doing what?

 

Does alt-F have LVM?

https://www.google.com/search?q=Does+alt-F+have+LVM&oq=Does+alt-F+have+LVM