RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

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Gunthor
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RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

Kindly consider the following scenario:
Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 2.6.6.RCF2 with 2 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 1. 18 hours ago I mounted two additional drives (again WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB) and started the RAID 1 to RAID 5 migration process using the storage manager. Two things appear odd to me:
  • I inserted the new HDDs into the second and into the fourth bay (from left to right). The green LEDs of the three left bays are steadily on. On the fourth bay the green LED is regularly blinking: 2 seconds on, 10 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 10 seconds off, ...
  • When opening the Storage Manager the app window is greyed out and in the center appears a running circle with the message "Loading". No progress bar is getting displayed!
  • The system log only shows the entry "[Volume] Volume 1 migrated to RAID 5 volume" when I started the migration process yesterday. Since then no warnings and no errors!
  • The CPU Activity monitor shows that the system is idle: Only one process "top" with Status "running" and consuming 2.2% CPU. All other processes have the status "Sleeping".
  • From my windows 7 client the windows explorer shows all the shares - however, navigating into directory trees or opening files is not possible.
  • The ADM File Explorer does not display any shares / folders. When trying to expand the ADM node only a running circle appears in front of the ADM descriptor.
Is this the normal Asustor migration behavior or do I need to open a support ticket... :?:
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
Antonios
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Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Antonios »

Maybe the fourth HDD was dead / died during the process?

Or not seated properly maybe?

At this point, I would pull that 4th HDD out, hot swap or not, next thing would be hard restart the whole NAS and see what is alive and what isn't.

Not sure if backup exists, but it would be certainly great if it did.

EDIT: 2nd version of speculation

Due to the original (pre RAID5) HDD 'unusual' location, the raid migration used up to HDD3, so HDD4 is unused and hibernating, hence the 10 second led blink, as described in page 10 of ASUSTOR_NAS_USER_GUIDE_ENU_2.3.0903

Disk Hibernation: Your hard disks will enter hibernation mode when left idle for the period of time specified here. Once in hibernation, the hard disk LED indicator on the front of the disk tray will flash once every 10 seconds to indicate that the disk is hibernating. If an access error is detected on a hard disk, the LED indicator on the front of the disk tray will be lit red.

http://download.asustor.com/download/do ... 3.0903.pdf

Does not explain the NAS not responding properly though or the absence of entries in the logs.

EDIT #2: Physical tests, are HDDs active or not?

What are the HDDs doing after so many hours, first the 3 supposedly active ones. Are they spinning? Are the head actuators moving at regular intervals as in bulding / rebuilding a RAID array? HDD rotation and head actuator movement can be either heard or felt by touching the HDD. A solid long thin object (like a screwdriver) can be used to better isolate sound from each specific HDD, thin end touched to each HDD in turn, handle touching the ear.

Same regarding HDD4.
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Gunthor
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Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

I took out the 4th HDD and re-inserted it: The HDD LED stayed on. The NAS ADM continued not to respond (Storage Manager,...). Soft restart did not work so I did a hard restart as Antonios suggested and I got lucky: The RAID migration obviously didn't start:
Image
Image
I can still access ALL my files :D :D :D
Now I hesitate to restart the migration... :?
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
Antonios
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Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Antonios »

Well, good for you mate!

I'll tell you what I would do If I had this situation on my hands.

Since its a RAID1, then both HDD1 and HDD3 contain the same data, a fully functional set of them.

Starting with the NAS being switched OFF, only HDD1 and HDD3 (the old RAID1 HDDs) inserted.

1. Take out the HDD3 and keep it out of the NAS.
2. Start the NAS with only HDD1 in it, it should start as a RAID1 'degraded'.
3. Add one of the new HDDs to position HDD2.
4. Allow the NAS to rebuild the RAID1.
5. Once it has done that, add the other new HDD to position HDD3 and expand the RAID1 to RAID5.
6. If this goes well, ONLY THEN add the last HDD, the one containing a full set of the original data, to position HDD4, kill the volume on that HDD and expand the RAID5 to include that last HDD.

Point is, until I get to step 6, which will destroy my second copy of data, I will have plenty of opportunity to determine if something is going not as it should be, so I could skip step 6 and keep that data set intact.

OR ignore step 6 altogether and keep HDD4 out of the NAS with a functional volume for a later date, maybe do an external backup first etc.

But steps 1 to 5, I would do right now, cause I want to know what is going on with that NAS.
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Gunthor
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Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

Thank you Antonios for your advice - I will do so.

However, I also think about upgrading my ADM version. There is even an ADM 3.0 Beta I am thinking about upgrading to, because its ChangeLog contains Fixed issue "Storage Manager Menu, RAID migration issue". I wonder if the migration behavior of my machine relates to this issue...? Does anybody know what exactly got fixed there? And would it be possible to upgrade my AS-6 machine to this ADM version? Maybe this is only for AS-7 machines?
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
Antonios
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:05 pm

Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Antonios »

1. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (ADM or whatever that is)

2. Learn from experience, preferably other peoples' (ADM 3.0 is beta, that is one thing 'maybe' fixed, 10 other things get broken in the process)

BTW, once in ADM 3.0 there is no going back no matter how much you might want to, read the release notes.

http://download.asustor.com/download/do ... 0.B7Q1.pdf

Just my 2c.
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Gunthor
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Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

Thank you Antonio for the tip on how to simply create a backup of my data using the RAID 1 rebuild functionality.
When this was done I slipped in one of the HDDs into bay 3 and restarted the RAID 1 to RAID 5 migration process: And again it got stuck :(
However, instead of updating ADM the solution is to deactivate all Apps using App Central before starting the migration process!

@Asustor,
You may add this tip into your online help documentation. I am sure users will appreciate a list with the apps necessary to deactivate. I didn't bother to find the app that caused the migration to freeze so I deactivated them all. ;)

After a working day the progress is now clearly visible:
Image

The normal migration behaviour is as follows:
1 - Higher CPU usage:
Image

2 - A visible md1_raid5 process:
Image

3 - The Disk Usage shows already RAID 5:
Image
I expect the capacity to double when the migration process is done (When the migration process gets stuck this selection is "loading" forever!)

4 - From the clients all data from all of the NAS shares is available while the migration is in process. :D
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
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Gunthor
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Location: Germany - Stuttgart

Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

Success: :D :D :D
Image

Capacity doubled as expected:
Image

Simple test moving a 11 GB .MKV file to an 950 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD Samsung and back:
Reading speed: 110-115 MB/s
Writing speed: 83-88 MB/s

Simple test moving 1,3 GB office files (1.320 files!) to an 950 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD Samsung and back:
Reading speed: 36-72 MB/s
Writing speed: 47-65 MB/s

I decide to stick to this setup for a few months so I will define the fourth HDD as a spare drive. ;)
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
Antonios
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:05 pm

Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Antonios »

That's some serious debugging you did there mate !

Images in third post show up alright, the images in the last two posts are not visible though, these might be of great help to anyone attempting to do anything like that for the first time.

Please re-up images of last two posts.
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Gunthor
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Location: Germany - Stuttgart

Re: RAID 1 to 5 migration on Asustor AS-604RS

Post by Gunthor »

For the first posts I used https://imgbb.com/ to upload Images. For the later post I used http://thumbsnap.com/. So the latter does not seem as relyable as the first one! I'll remember that for the future.

However I see all images also from the workstation of my business location as well. Nevertheless I'll do a re-up the following weekend...
Since 07/2023: Asustor AS6702T, (2 x Seagate IronWolf 12TB, RAID 1)
Old: Asustor AS-604RS, ADM 3.1.2.RHG1 (4 x WD Red WD30EFRX 3TB, RAID 5)
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