[SOLVED] Raid 0 to Raid 10 migration and conversion

Feb 26, 2020
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I have a QNAP T469L NAS with four 3TB drives configured in Raid 10 array, yielding about 5.4 TB of usable data space. It currently has 2.23 TB of data stored. The system does ok, but the NAS is maxed out at 3GB of RAM and uses an Intel Atom processor. Thus very weak in horsepower.

My plan is to build a workstation using a HP Z840 with 64 GB of RAM and dual XEON processors which I have already purchased. I will recreate the NAS data store insode this Win10 Pro box using four additional 3TB drives in Raid 10. I have two new Sata III 3 TB drives, but want to use two identical drives that are currently in the NAS.

My questions then:

Can I start with a Raid 0 configuration using the two new 3TB drives I have ready, and then transfer the 2.23 TB of data to that? Then once the data is moved, remove the two 3TB drives from the NAS and rebuild the 2-disk Raid 0 to a 4-disk Raid 10? My only misgiving is that there will be a brief time during this transition that the Raid 0 is the only copy of my data. Finally, during the conversion, will data from the Raid 0 be wiped out when converting to Raid 10?

Any thoughts, suggestions, or advice is greatly appreciated.
 
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Solution
Always have a backup when messing with partitions or disks.

1: The fastest way is getting another pair of drives and making 2 separate backups & verifying they are good. Installing the 4 nas drives into the new server, configure & format the Raid10 and loading it with data. Then Verifying the data. Take the 2 non-nas drive, sell them or throw them in the server as an 'I dont care about the data' Raid 0 or 1 fun drive.

2: The cheapest way out of this mess is to use the 2 new nas drives as the backup drives. Verifying the backups are good. Moving the 4 current drives to the new server, configure & format the new raid 10, copy the data back in & verify its all good.
2a: Now replace one non-nas drive with one new nas drive - rebuild...
Feb 26, 2020
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Do you have a backup of the data somewhere else? Maybe get a 3TB external drive just for a backup of the data before you even begin.
I do not have a backup of the NAS elsewhere. What I do have is four 3TB drives that can somehow serve this purpose during migration.

Two of the drives in the NAS are exact matches for the two brand new drives I have. These are Deskstar NAS 3TB drives. I bought 2 new drives not realizing they were not the NAS series drives. they are Deskstar 3TB drives, just not the NAS series. I ultimately want all four NAS drives in the new Windows 10 Pro workstation. I will then repurpose the NAS box with four other drives.

The Z840 supports two RAID arrays. So can I find a safe process to make this transformation?
 
Feb 26, 2020
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I want to move 2.23 TB of data from a NAS Raid10 to a WIN10Pro raid store. I have 4 new drives and the four drives in the NAS with my data. But I ultimately want two of the currently installed drives in the NAS to be part of the new Win10Pro array.

Can I copy the data to a two-disk Raid0 array, then pull the two discs from the NAS and install them in the PC, and migrate the Raid 0 to a Raid 10 without losing data?

(I had this thread in STORAGE bit is disappeared. Not sure why)
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
I want to move 2.23 TB of data from a NAS Raid10 to a WIN10Pro raid store. I have 4 new drives and the four drives in the NAS with my data. But I ultimately want two of the currently installed drives in the NAS to be part of the new Win10Pro array.

Can I copy the data to a two-disk Raid0 array, then pull the two discs from the NAS and install them in the PC, and migrate the Raid 0 to a Raid 10 without losing data?

(I had this thread in STORAGE bit is disappeared. Not sure why)
No, you will not be successful with that approach, and whatever you do insure that you have sufficient backup. Perhaps a friend or family member has space on one or more external drives to keep the data temporarily.
 
Feb 26, 2020
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No, you will not be successful with that approach, and whatever you do insure that you have sufficient backup. Perhaps a friend or family member has space on one or more external drives to keep the data temporarily.
So when converting a two-disk Raid 0 to a 4-disk Raid 10, is all data lost?
 
Feb 26, 2020
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No, you will not be successful with that approach, and whatever you do insure that you have sufficient backup. Perhaps a friend or family member has space on one or more external drives to keep the data temporarily.
Perhaps the solution is to replace the two drives I want from the NAS with the two new drives I bought and let the NAS rebuild the array one at a time. Then I can take those two drives and reformat for the Windows system so I have the four matched drives.

Once the new RAID 10 is formatted in the WIN10 box, then I simply copy the data from the rebuilt NAS store over to the Windows store. (and the reason I run a RAID10 is to have a 100% redundant backup and don't have to have external backups. I've had two drives fail simultaneously and the system recovered autonomously.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
So when converting a two-disk Raid 0 to a 4-disk Raid 10, is all data lost?
It's not only changing the RAID type, it is also changing the hardware (RAID controller).
You can't expect the new RAID controller to read the current drives in their RAID 0 config.

Do NOT do this without a known good backup of the data.

Also, RAID (of any type) is not a backup.
My QNAP is backed up to another box of sufficient size.
 
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Feb 26, 2020
11
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It's not only changing the RAID type, it is also changing the hardware (RAID controller).
You can't expect the new RAID controller to read the current drives in their RAID 0 config.

Do NOT do this without a known good backup of the data.

Also, RAID (of any type) is not a backup.
My QNAP is backed up to another box of sufficient size.

You're right that it is not a backup in the strictest sense. But having a 100% redundancy in Raid 10 is almost better with respect to drive failures. The odds of three simultaneous drive failures is very low. And the benefits of Raid10 are significant. First, my data redundancy is real time rather than a scheduled process. Then the i/o value of striping brings excellent performance gains. I've been using this system for about 5 years, suffered several drive failures until I started buying enterprise grade drives, and never suffered one bit of data loss.

Thank you for your comments. I believe I have a path forward.
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Always have a backup when messing with partitions or disks.

1: The fastest way is getting another pair of drives and making 2 separate backups & verifying they are good. Installing the 4 nas drives into the new server, configure & format the Raid10 and loading it with data. Then Verifying the data. Take the 2 non-nas drive, sell them or throw them in the server as an 'I dont care about the data' Raid 0 or 1 fun drive.

2: The cheapest way out of this mess is to use the 2 new nas drives as the backup drives. Verifying the backups are good. Moving the 4 current drives to the new server, configure & format the new raid 10, copy the data back in & verify its all good.
2a: Now replace one non-nas drive with one new nas drive - rebuild the array. Then make a backup to the drive you just removed so you have a 2nd backup & verify it.
2b: Now repeat 2a removing the last non-nas drive.
 
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