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[Maddness]

i own a DNS-343 for ofer 4 Years now. Now is time to make a upgrade because
 
1. no space left
2. no SMART Paramter check in FW1.02
3. new HDDs not list at the HDD compatible List
 

DNS-343 Type Data:
H/W Ver: A1 FW Ver 1.02
P/N : ENS343M......A1G
 
 
 
Configuraion right now:
 
Slot  Vendor   Model         Serial Number Size
1     Seagate  ST31500341AS  9VS1XXXX      1500 G  |---> RAID 1  (Usage 97%)
2     Seagate  ST31500341AS  9VS1XXXX      1500 G  |
3     -        -             -             -   
4     -        -             -             -
 
The plan is to upgrade to the FW 1.05 (maybe to 1.06 if supported) an put some new HDDs in
The new HDDs are Seagate ST1500DL003 1,5 TB
 
The new Configuration should be:
Slot  Vendor   Model          Serial Number  Size
1     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume1
2     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |
 
3     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |
4     Seagate  ST31500341AS   XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume2
 
Are there Problems making a RAID1 with 2 different HDDs?
Also the new HDDs have 4K Sectors, the old not.
 
The Reason why i want to mix the HDDs is data security
The old HDDs are 4 Years old, and you never now when the time is come
 
The reason for RAID 1 is also data security, if the DNS 343 itself gets broken, you can plug a HDD in your PC and you can read all the data
i tink RAID 1 faster also


What do you tink about the "plan" ?


 

[JavaLawyer]

Do you have a backup of your data? RAID-1 provides redundancy, but is not considered a backup. If you don't have a separate backup, please carefully read the following thread: DNS-343 - Data Backup vs. Redundancy.

That said, you can create a second RAID-1 by placing two unformatted HDDs in Slot-3 and Slot-4. The DNS-343 should prompt you with the option to format those two HDDs in RAID-1.

Best practices state that when creating a new RAID array, an effort should be made to ensure all HDDs in the array are of the same size, make, and model. My primary concern with your approach is that you'll be mixing AFT and non-AFT HDDs in the same RAID array, and I don't know if that will cause any compatibility issues.

If your four HDDs were formatted as "Standard Volumes" with scheduled backups between HDDs, you can mix the AFT and non-AFT HDDs since they will not be part of an array and you'll have what many would consider a true backup. If you were to choose this route, I strongly suggest playing with the on-board scheduling (after updating the firmware) to see how the scheduler behaves. The software is rather limited in functionality: incremental backups do not provide the option to remove files that were deleted in the "source" HDD, so the "destination" Volume will grow incrementally larger than the source volume over time; secondly, file names containing certain special characters may cause scheduled backup jobs to fail.  I skirt around these issuing via a third party software product that I periodically use to sync my two DNS-343s.

As far as the firmware is concerned, the only difference between version 1.05 and the latest 1.06 beta is an FTP-related fix. No other changes.

[Maddness]

Backup job is running at the moment, it take a long time to copy 1,5 TB over the Gigabit Port
(about 8-10 hours)
The Backup is placed on a external USB HDD.

as i understand, the following configuration whould be better:
1     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume1
2     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |
 
3     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |
4     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  ||---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume2

in this case, AFT and non-AFT HDDs have the same RAID.

The problem is, thats realy hard to get the old drives (ST31500341AS) again.
so, sooner or later i need to mix the configuration


i read about data loss of AFT drives when the usage is over 80%
they talk about files that disapear and so on

can you confirm that?

[JavaLawyer]

Backup job is running at the moment, it take a long time to copy 1,5 TB over the Gigabit Port
(about 8-10 hours)
The Backup is placed on a external USB HDD.

Nightly incremental backups should take a trivial amount of time once the first backup is performed.

as i understand, the following configuration whould be better:
1     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume1
2     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |
 
3     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |
4     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  ||---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume2

in this case, AFT and non-AFT HDDs have the same RAID.

This approach will minimize risk due to the unknown compatibility.

The problem is, thats realy hard to get the old drives (ST31500341AS) again.
so, sooner or later i need to mix the configuration

Although more costly, you can always phase-out the old HDDs altogether if you feel both HDDs are close to failure.

i read about data loss of AFT drives when the usage is over 80%
they talk about files that disapear and so on

can you confirm that?

Did you read about compatibility issues on the DNS-343? or any NAS device?
RAID only? or Standard Volumes? or Both?

[Maddness]

i read something about problems with AFT drives at a RAID config on DNS-3x3 systems, but i cant find that link

so what do you think:
when i am able to format the AFT HDDs as a RAID 1 they should work
if the DNS-343 has problems with the AFT HDDs, the format will fail as far as i know

and one last thin about FW update:
i'm runing funplug on my NAS.
Before update i rename the funplug file (at Volume1) and reboot the NAS, so funplug is not loaded and not effect the update right?


tgx 

[JavaLawyer]

This sticky post hints about the issues you were referencing: http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=12978.0

I personally haven't installed funplug, so I can't speak to the FW impact. Generally speaking, removing/disabling installed third-party software that may impact a major upgrade will always mitigate issues.

[Maddness]

quick replay:

update is done. No problems right now
Everythin done like wrote above.

i use this config:
1     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume1
2     Seagate  ST31500341AS   9VS1XXXX       1500 G  |
 
3     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  |
4     Seagate  ST1500DL003    XXXXXXXX       1500 G  ||---> RAID 1 (Usage 50%)Volume2


the format of the ST1500DL003 as RAID1 took only 1 hour.
i uses ext2 as filessystem

any ideas how to test if the drives with AFT do there job right?