User Manual
Table Of Contents
- Contents
- 1. Getting Started
- Start Using Your ReadyNAS System
- Additional Documentation
- Supported ReadyNAS Systems
- Supported Operating Systems
- Supported Browsers
- Diskless Systems
- Basic Installation
- Upgrade Pre-6.2 ReadyNAS Firmware for Use With ReadyCLOUD
- Discover and Set Up Your ReadyNAS Using ReadyCLOUD
- Local Setup Wizard
- Admin Page
- Access the Local Admin Page
- Register Your System
- Five Levels of Protection
- The ReadyNAS Community
- Safe Mode
- 2. Volume Configuration
- Basic Volume and RAID Concepts
- ReadyTIER, Tiers, Data, and Metadata
- Manage Volumes
- Change RAID Mode
- View the Status of a Volume
- Configure the Checksum Function
- Format Disks
- Create and Encrypt a Volume
- Delete a Volume
- Name a USB Drive
- Expand Storage Capacity
- Add Protection to a Volume
- Add Protection to a Flex-RAID Volume
- Add a Group to a Flex-RAID Volume
- Delete a RAID Group
- Use the Volume Management Wizard to Create a Volume
- Add a Tier to a Volume
- Enable or Disable Quotas on Volumes
- Maintain Volumes
- 3. Shares
- 4. LUNs
- 5. Snapshots
- 6. Users and Groups
- 7. Use Cloud Services
- 8. System Settings
- 9. System Power
- 10. Install and Manage Apps
- 11. System Monitoring
- 12. System Maintenance
- 13. Backup and Recovery
Table 1. Flex-RAID levels and data protection
Can I add a disk for data protection?RAID
Level
Minimum Number of Disks per
Volume
No. (JBOD is available only for volumes consisting of one disk)JBOD1
No. (Volume protection is already redundant.)RAID 12
Yes. (Additional disk provides single redundancy and converts the
volume to RAID 5.)
RAID 02 or more
Yes. (Additional disk provides dual redundancy and converts the
volume to RAID 6.)
RAID 53 or more
No. (Volume protection is already redundant.)RAID 104 or more(even number)
No. (Volume is already protected with dual redundancy.)RAID 64 or more
No, but you can add two disks. (The additional disks provide dual
redundancy and converts the volume to RAID 60.)
RAID 506 or more
No. (Volume is already protected with dual redundancy.)RAID 608 or more
ReadyTIER, Tiers, Data, and Metadata
Using ReadyTIER, you can define tiers to a volume. For example, when using hard disk
drives in a volume, you can organize a tier that adds a RAID group of SSDs within the
volume.
The Btrfs file system, the basis of the ReadyNAS OS file system, organizes information
stored in the file system as data and metadata (and system data, but that isn't relevant
here). Volume metadata includes such things as directory information, file names, file
permissions, stores under 8Kb of data, and checksums. Volume metadata is read and
written more frequently than specific blocks of data and there is typically much less
metadata than data.
Using ReadyTIER, you can create a higher performing storage tier consisting of SSD
drives and use that tier with a volume consisting of hard drives. When you create the
tier you tell ReadyNAS OS to use the tier for data or metadata. The choice to configure
a tier for data or metadata depends on the size of the SSD tier compared to the size of
the hard drive volume, and how data is read and written. For example, if the SSD is large
enough to handle typical file reads and writes, a data tier might work best, but because
volume metadata is read and written more frequently than specific blocks of data, under
some circumstances you can get significant performance improvement with just metadata
tiering.
Software Manual28Volume Configuration
ReadyNAS OS 6.10