Best/Easiest way to replace volume 1 (no RAID)

[hinghenry]

I have a Asustor AS202TE.
My Volume 1 (Western Digital 3TB red) is almost 10 years, 85% full, recently have a read error on one of the minor file, so I guess it is time to upgrade it.
I've bought a Western Digital 6TB red.
I'm not running RAID on my two Volume, since I need all my 3TBx2, and I run external backup manually.

What is the easiest way to replace my Volume 1 with the new HDD? Most discussion/methods here seem to be for RAID only. Do I have to do the data transfer manually (like setting it up from zero), or is there an easy way in the ADM somewhere?
Thanks.

[Nazar78]

What is the easiest way to replace my Volume 1 with the new HDD? Most discussion/methods here seem to be for RAID only. Do I have to do the data transfer manually (like setting it up from zero), or is there an easy way in the ADM somewhere?
Thanks.
hinghenry

Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:02 am

That's the best way. Make sure you have the latest firmware. Initialize the new disk, put the old disk in the 2nd bay, then copy over the data.

[hinghenry]

I'll do it manually.
By "Initialize the new disk" do you mean I should just put my new disk in Disk 1 and original Disk 1 into Disk 2, do the setup, then copy over the data?
Does this require me to setup everything anew, like my Dropbox and OneDrive sync, and the various setup?

[Nazar78]

Yes. You can export the settings then restore back into the newly initialized disk. The apps and its settings however you need to redo.

There's of course an advanced method of doing this but it requires some level of knowledge that's not covered in the Asustor's college tutorial. It involves image dumping and expansion of partition and file system.

[hinghenry]

I'm stuck with my new disk being "inaccessible".

Just in case, I think I should describe my situation better and from the beginning.

Using AS202TE, 2-bay, since 2015.
Volume 1 (Disk 1) is 3TB, used for 8 years. Just found to have bad sector ("8 bad block" so far). This is the disk I plan to replace.
Volume 2 (Disk 2) is 4TB, started using 2 years ago.
Not running RAID. I do regular backup to external HDD.

I bought a new 6TB disk.
I switched off the NAS, took out the current 4TB Disk 2, and replaced it with the new 6TB disk.
Switched on the NAS. There was no special message, booted like normal. In Storage Manager, it shows that Volume 2 is inaccessible. File system in EXT4. It can detect that the drive is in Disk 2 slot, 5.46TB, but the status is inactive.

I tried switching Disk 1 (old 3TB) and Disk 2 (new 6TB). When the NAS rebooted, it recognize Volume 1 is in Disk 2 slot (old 3TB one), and the new disk Volume 2 is in Disk 1 slot. But still the new 6TB disk is inactive and unusable.

I have the latest firmware (3.5.9.RUE3)

So the question is, how can I "initialize" or activate the disk?
- Do I need to do some kind of "format" on the new 6TB disk, like I did for HDD on desktop before?
- Is there any method to "activate" the new HDD that I have missed?
- Do I have to remove both existing disks 1 and 2, only put in the new 6TB disk, do the "initialization" which actually equals to a factory reset. Only after this, I put back in the old Volume 1 and copy back the data into the new disk? [Oh... I seem to realize this is the method you point me to from the beginning as I type]

Just to confirm... after I do the initialization using the new 6TB disk, and when I put back my old Volume 1 (3TB) into Disk 2 slot, the data in the old 3TB is still there and readable, right? And similar for my 4TB disk, right? I have external backup, but I'll need to be extra careful because if those data become lost I'll pay extra attention to make sure the external HDD backup are up-to-date and have no bad sectors...

Hope to see your reply soon and many many thanks for your advice so far!

P.S. wait a minute... how did I replace my 4TB drive before? I certainly have replaced one drive before, upgrading a 3TB to a new 4TB drive in 2020. So why couldn't I do the same this time with my 6TB disk? I'll have to figure out.

[Nazar78]

Without actually looking into the system, I can't really tell what's wrong. Suggest you open a ticket with Asustor Support to see why the drive has an inactive status.

Edited:

In Storage Manager, it shows that Volume 2 is inaccessible. File system in EXT4. It can detect that the drive is in Disk 2 slot, 5.46TB, but the status is inactive.

This might be a clue, the new disk has a EXT4 file system? Who created that? I suspect ADM saw that you already have a file system but the layout is not created by Asustor so it rejects any further management to prevent data lost. I have an external SSD with EXT4 that ADM refuse to mount, while no issues with ExFAT and NTFS, that I had to automatically mount it by means of mods and scripts.

Ensure that new 6TB disk is what you expected, i.e. have no actually data. You can then clear the FS and partitions. Please be very careful don't mix up the disks. I'm not sure how to do it in ADM's GUI but you'll need command lines to wipe the disk. Refer to https://phoenixnap.com/kb/delete-partition-linux. For GUI try loading and doing it in Windows Disk Management. Then let ADM detect it as a new unformatted drive to be setup accessible in ADM storage.

[Nazar78]

It seems you only need to create new volume. https://forum.asustor.com/viewtopic.php ... 944#p43944