A storage pool is designed to aggregate physical hard disk drives into a large storage space and to provide enhanced RAID protection for it. You can perform the following actions to manage storage pools:
Storage Pools are not supported by some NAS models. Please refer to the QNAP website, product information, and software specifications for more details.
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For RAID groups that contain 16 hard drives, up to 512MB RAM will be used for them. 1GB RAM is recommended for 24-32 hard drives.
Creating New Storage Pools
Follow these steps to create a new storage pool:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Click "Create" > "New Storage Pool".
3.
Select the enclosure unit, hard disk drive(s), RAID type and hot spare disk and click "Create".
4.
Set the percentage of storage spool space that is reserved to store snapshots.
5.
Please note that all data on the selected hard disk drive(s) will be erased. Click "OK" if you are certain about this.
6.
A new storage pool will be created.
Removing Storage Pools
Follow these steps to remove a storage pool:
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Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
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Double click a storage pool to be removed to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
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Click "Remove" > "Remove Pool".
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Click "Apply".
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The selected storage pool will be removed.
Note: Before you remove a storage pool, be sure to remove all volumes and LUNs on that storage pool.
Safely Detaching Storage Pools
Follow these steps to safely detach a storage pool:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to be removed to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Click "Remove" > "Safely Detach Pool".
4.
Click "Apply".
5.
The selected storage pool will be removed.
Note: After a storage pool is reattached, the configurations of iSCSI LUNs mapped in the storage pool or Apps installed before the detachment will not be automatically recovered.
Expanding Storage Pools
Follow these steps to expand a storage pool:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to be expanded to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Click "Expand Pool".
4.
Select to create and add a new RAID group. Select "Adding new hard drive(s) to an existing RAID group"(the option "Create new RAID groups" will be covered in the following section), choose an existing RAID group from the drop-down list and click "Next".
5.
Select the hard drive(s) to expand the storage pool and click "Next".
6.
Click "Expand".
7.
Please note that all data on the selected hard disk drive(s) will be erased. Click "OK" if you are certain about this.
8.
The chosen storage pool will be expanded.
Note: New disks cannot be inserted into existing RAID groups of storage pools for specific RAID types (such as RAID 0, RAID 10, Single or JBOD). You must create an additional RAID group to expand those storage pools.
Expanding storage pools by creating new RAID groups
Follow these steps to create a RAID group for storage pool expansion:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to be expanded to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Click "Expand Pool", select "Create and add a new RAID group" and click "Next".
4.
Select the enclosure unit, hard disk drive(s), RAID type and hot spare disk and click "Next".
5.
Please note that if the type of the newly-created RAID group is different from that of the existing RAID group(s), the performance of the entire storage pool may be affected. To continue, click "OK".
6.
Click "Expand".
7.
Please note that all data on the selected hard drive(s) will be erased. Click "OK" if you are certain about this.
8.
The chosen storage pool will be expanded.
Note:
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RAID 0, JBOD or Single RAID Group cannot be added to a storage pool if that storage pool already contains RAID 1, 5, 6, or 10.
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It is recommended to set an independent storage pool on a JBOD and only add new disks to that JBOD (or replace the existing disks in that JBOD) when expanding the storage pool. Otherwise, data stored on that JBOD will become inaccessible when connecting that JBOD to a different NAS host.
Expanding storage pools by replacing hard disk drives in a RAID array
With this function, RAID group capacity can be expanded by replacing hard disk drives in an array one by one. This option is supported for the following RAID types: RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10. Follow these steps to expand a RAID group:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to be expanded to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Select a RAID group and click "Manage" > "Expand Capacity".
4.
Select at least one hard disk drive and click "Change". After the description displays "Please remove this drive", remove the hard disk drive from the NAS or expansion enclosure.
5.
After the description displays "You can replace this drive", plug in the new hard disk drive to the drive slot.
6.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all hard drives have been replaced.
7.
Click "Expand Capacity" to continue. Click "Yes".
8.
The chosen RAID group is expanded.
Note: Available RAID management operations are detailed in the chapter on RAID Groups.
Setting a Threshold
The system will generate a warning message in system logs when the storage pool used size hits the threshold. To set a threshold value for a storage pool, follow these steps:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to set a threshold to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Click "Actions" > "Set Threshold".
4.
Enter a value for alert threshold and click "Apply".
Setting Snapshot Reservation
You can set snapshot reservation space to ensure enough space for saving snapshots. Snapshot reservation is set as a percentage of total storage pool space and there are two scenarios:
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When the snapshot reserve is set to 0%, new snapshots taken will all be saved to a storage pool until that storage pool runs out of its space. When that happens, the system will start recycling older snapshots regardless the snapshot limitation set in Snapshot Global Settings.
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When the snapshot reserve is set to a value greater than 0%, this reserved space will be dedicated entirely to snapshots. The free space in a storage pool will be lower after the value is set and the snapshots will only use the space reserved. When the space used for snapshots exceeds the snapshot reserve, the system will start recycling older snapshots regardless the snapshot limitation set in Snapshot Global Settings.
To set snapshot reservation, follow these steps:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool to set reserved space for snapshots and to bring up the Storage Pool Management page.
3.
Click "Actions" > "Set Snapshot Reserved", enter a value for snapshot reserved space, and click "Apply".
Note:
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For more Snapshot details, refer to the Snapshot section in the Volumes chapter.
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The function or its content is only applicable on some models. To check for applicable models, please refer to the product comparison table on the QNAP website.
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A minimum of 4 GB RAM is required to use snapshots.
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x51 series models only support up to 256 snapshots instead of 1024. The HS-251 does not support snapshots.
Creating New Volumes for Storage Pools
To create a new volume for a storage pool, follow these steps:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool.
3.
Click "Create"> "New Volume". Follow the onscreen instructions to finish the creation process. For more details, please refer to the Volumes section.
Creating New iSCSI LUNs for Storage Pools
To create a new iSCSI LUN for a storage pool, follow these steps:
1.
Go to "Storage Manager" > "STORAGE" > "Storage Space".
2.
Double click a storage pool.
3.
Click "Create"> "New iSCSI LUN". Follow the onscreen instructions to finish the creation process. For more details, please refer to the iSCSI Storage section.
