TerraMaster Forum

Hello, I added 3 new HDDs to my array, which makes the total number 5. I clicked upgrade to RAID5 in TOS. Somehow, without asking me, TOS has upgraded my volume to RAID6, which I did not want. I also had 2 drives come up for warranty replacement (they are working fine, but WD offered to replace them as they are WD Reds, and replace them with Red Pros), so I was planning on reverting back to a 3-drive setup while I wait for the replacement drives. I know RAID6 REQUIRES 4 drives, which is one of the reasons I didn't want to upgrade to RAID6 at all (in addition to wanting more storage space overall). I have 3.3TB of files, so I really REALLY do not want to back up to an external disk.

My questions:

1. Why did it upgrade to RAID6 on its own?
2. How can I revert back to RAID5?
3. How do I remove Hard Disks from the Volume/Array?
4. Does my TNAS have to be non-operational while I wait for the replacement drives?

Thank you for your time.

1. Did you choose "Add hard drives to RAID"?
Instructions for Adding HDDs to RAID: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=1542
We will check it.
2. You can only delete the volume after synchronizing Raid 6 and backing up all data to an external disk or cloud storage, then delete the storage pool and recreate the storage pool of Raid 5, and create a new volume on the storage pool.
3. After forming a volume or array, the hard disk cannot be deleted, but can only be replaced or added.
4. You need to operate while booting.
If you want to use Red Pros to replace WD Reds for Raid expansion, please refer to the following operation: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=1543
If you just want to use Red Pros to replace the old hard drive, please refer to the following operation: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=1545

note:
You can only delete Raid 6 and rebuild Raid 5 after backing up the data to other places.
You need to wait for the Raid 6 synchronization to complete before deleting, otherwise there may be problems when rebuilding.

1. The first time (going from 2 to 3 drives), the only option available was "Online RAID level migration" (which is understandable/fine, I was going from RAID1 to RAID5 anyway. I never click anything else for the other drives. I plugged in the other drives and it just started "synchronizing".
2. Dammit.
3. Double dammit.
4. I would want to do that, but WD is not sending me the new drives until I send them the old ones, so since I don't want to have a non-functional NAS for at 1-2 weeks (especially with how screwed the USPS has been lately), I guess I'll have to free up space on an external HDD and backup my files & start over

What is your device model?
What is your TOS system version?

My model is a F5-221.
My TOS system version is 4.2.08-2101111540.

So I cleared off enough space on a USB HDD, plugged it into the NAS, and started copying files to a folder on it via the TOS.

I got to about 36% after 12 hours, but now I cannot open the NAS in my browser.

I can still access it on the network via windows file explorer, and my Plex server can still stream content, but the NAS OS never loads.

The files are still being copied, but only at about 10MBps, which with 2TB left, will take... 50 hours? on a USB 3.0 drive?! It was moving at 30-60 before I couldn't access the TOS via chrome.

Is there anything I can do?

So it ended up crawling down to about 5MBps and I said screw it & turned off the NAS - had to hold down the power button; it wasn't even responding to just pushing it.

I went through and verified matching file sizes on most of the transferred folders, deleted the rest.

At this point I'm just gonna move each (60-90gb) folder one by one, unless someone points me out in the right direction.

Oh, and I tried USB Copy & it froze up my NAS too

Wow, it wouldn't even copy ONE FOLDER WITHOUT CRASHING, so I went back to "USB Copy"

It just WIPED MY ENTIRE 5TB Storage drive.

I didn't have my new backup drive in time yet so I was using my main archive, with everything I held dear.

I hit "eject safely" and it somehow changed my drive's format to an "unknown format"

poof. All of my important memories, gone.

I'm so furious right now. "eject safely" shouldn't DESTROY YOUR DRIVE.

Sorry to hear this result, what does your external drive show?
Can it still be used on a computer?
After you eject the external storage safely, you may need to wait for a while before plugging in the TNAS, otherwise the external storage may not be able to be mounted.
You can wait for a while and then plug it in again or plug it into another USB port.