Conflicts between QuTS Hero and QTS

English Firmware
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1

I had QuTS Hero with two RAID 1 pools, one on HDD and one on SSD NVMe, with a cache on SSD SATA.
I decided to switch to QTS to try Qtier, so I performed a factory reset and shut down the NAS.

  1. System Preparation
  • I removed the HDD and SSD SATA disks.
  • I restarted the NAS, selected the QTS firmware, and waited for it to boot.
  • I shut down the NAS again, reinserted the HDD and SSD SATA disks, then turned it back on.
  1. Qtier Configuration
  • With these steps, I believe part of the OS was installed on the SSD NVMe disks.
  • I created a three-tier pool using Qtier:
  1. HDD > SSD SATA > SSD NVMe (all three in RAID1).
  • Everything went smoothly, and the system was working correctly.
  1. Testing and Issue Encountered
  • I conducted a test by disconnecting an SSD SATA disk via “Manage”.
  • After the BEEP BEEP sounds and the Inactive status appeared in the device column, I removed the disk.
  • A few minutes later, I reinserted it and waited over an hour, but it remained Inactive.
  • I decided to restart the NAS.
  1. Unexpected Behavior
  • Upon reboot, the NAS loaded QuTS Hero instead of QTS.
  • I checked Storage and Snapshot:
  • All disks were visible, but no RAID or pool was configured.
  • I tried to create one, but without success.
  • I shut down and restarted the NAS: this time, it booted into QTS, but still without any pool or RAID.
    NAS Qnap TS-464-16GB

Avevo QuTS Hero con due pool RAID 1, uno su HDD e uno su SSD NVMe, con cache su SSD SATA.
Ho deciso di passare a QTS per provare Qtier, quindi ho effettuato un ripristino alle impostazioni iniziali e ho spento il NAS.

  1. Preparazione del sistema
  • Ho estratto i dischi HDD e SSD SATA.
  • Ho riacceso il NAS, selezionato il firmware QTS e atteso l’avvio.
  • Ho spento nuovamente il NAS e reinserito i dischi HDD e SSD SATA, poi ho riacceso il sistema.
  1. Configurazione Qtier
  • Con questi passaggi, penso di aver installato parte del sistema operativo sui dischi SSD NVMe.
  • Ho creato un pool a 3 stadi con Qtier:
  1. HDD > SSD SATA > SSD NVMe (tutti e tre in RAID1).
  • Tutto è andato a buon fine, il sistema funzionava correttamente.
  1. Test e problema riscontrato
  • Ho effettuato un test scollegando un SSD SATA da “Gestisci”.
  • Dopo i BIP BIP e la comparsa della scritta Inactive nella colonna dispositivo, ho estratto il disco.
  • Dopo qualche minuto, l’ho reinserito e ho atteso oltre un’ora, ma risultava ancora Inactive.
  • Ho deciso di riavviare il NAS.
  1. Comportamento anomalo
  • Al riavvio, il NAS ha avviato QuTS Hero invece di QTS.
  • Ho controllato Archiviazione e Snapshot:
    • I dischi erano visibili, ma nessun RAID o pool era configurato.
    • Ho provato a crearne uno, ma senza successo.
  • Ho spento e riacceso il NAS: questa volta è ripartito con QTS, ma ancora senza pool nĂŠ RAID.
    NAS Qnap TS-464-16GB
2

The OS is always installed on all NAS internal drives, no matter what they do (DATA/Cache/Tier)

If you remove storage controlled, you also have to add it controlled again (attach pool)

3

I’ve never used Q-tier, but I believe your problem is from before that. I believe if in ‘system preparation’ you were good on the first two items where you had QTS installed on NVMe’s were fine, but the mistake was powering down before inserting the ssds and hdds. If you had inserted those while still powered up live on QTS on the NVMe’s, QTS configuration info on the hidden partitions on EVERY drive would have been propagated to the hidden partitions on the SSD’s and HDD’s (upon their insertion) from the NVMe’s you initialized to QTS . By powering off after QTS initialization before inserting the SSD’s and HDD’s, when you rebooted the system would see QTS on the NVMe’s but also the old Hero image still on all SSD’s and HDD’s. I believe QNAP will try to find a working system configuration and looks at the first two HDD/SSD bays before looking at PCIe NVMe’s and that’s why ‘unexpected behavior’ of reboot bringing on Hero instead of QTS.

If you had not powered down after QTS install but inserted all the ssd’s and hdd’s before any re-boot or power off, there would be the QTS config on ALL disk images upon re-boot.

Alternatively, I believe if you never removed any drives before system initialization to QTS, all would have been fine as well. If concern is for locating “(System)” (as shown in storage and snapshots) to the NVMe’s, as long as the first pool/volume created is on the NVMe’s, that will happen.

4

reinitialize NAS
reinitialize NAS676×174 30 KB

The “Reinitialize NAS” button, won’t it erase hidden disks and system files?

5

It might not … always clear all disks via respective docks … even more so when switching OS

6

To restore everything to factory settings and before switching from QuTS to QTS and vice versa, do I need to press all three buttons?

7

No just externally erase all drives (as said)

8

I thought that if, during the initial startup and installation of QuTS Hero or QTS, only NVMe drives were present, part of the operating system would be written exclusively on them. So, if I later shut down the NAS and insert additional disks, those disks would not be written with OS files.

I tested it today with a mechanical disk, and the process worked automatically. You can check the details in the messages from the attached image.

Severity. Info
Severity. Info558×1300 111 KB

9

Nope, as soon as you hang more disks in (any any form of usage) they get the OS partitions copied to them … no matter if QTS or QuTS always ext md9 and md13 only difference is SSD vs HDD swap partitions

just login via SSH and do a cat /proc/mdstat and check

The screenshot shows disks removed during operations (rebuild happens)

10

Yes, that is why when you re-booted after inserting ssd’s and hdd’s that were last online on a hero system, QTS config was on NVMe’s but the prior Hero config was still on the hdd’s and ssd’s and looking first at bay 1 and 2 for a config first, hero is what came up, not qts. As I and Dolbyman have said earlier, current running os config is written to any additional disks hidden partitions when inserted. By yanking ssd’s and hdd’s before QTS init on the NVMe’s and inserting after power down, since power is down those partitions on the SSD’s and HDD’s couldn’t be updated, so when you power up to reboot, the device has two different os configs it must choose between.

And regarding which ‘buttons’ the QTS vs. hero discussions all clearly state ‘system initialization’ (‘Rre-initialize NAS’ selection using hero/qts gui) is required to swap os’s.

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11

Sorry for my lack of knowledge—I performed these operations thinking that, in the future, I could replace the RAID 1 HDD setup with a RAID 5 configuration. I assumed that if no OS files were present on the disk, I would have more flexibility in setting up the new RAID.
To summarize the issue I described earlier: When I removed the SATA SSD and later reinserted it, the rebuild did not happen, essentially ‘breaking’ Qtier (even though Qtier can still function without one disk). Then, upon rebooting the NAS, for some strange reason, the system decided that the old QuTS Hero configuration was ‘more valid’ than QTS, so it booted into QuTS Hero. However, after another shutdown and restart, it unexpectedly switched back to QTS.

12

Sorry, I thought that switching from ZFS to EXT4 would erase all data, including system and configuration files. However, now I have a question: is it possible that the configurations of both operating systems are stored in the NAS’s 4GB built-in memory, meaning that the disks and their internal configurations have little influence on the process described initially?

13

Only thing that would be saved in the DOM would be I think some autostart scripts (was previously infection target of malware)

So besides the setup bootstrap, nothing is on the DOM

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14

From experience, I can confirm that there’s only one OS image on built in FOB (on older systems it’s smaller than 4GB). When starting ‘initialize NAS’ the first screen will have either QTS or QTShero at the top and screen (reflecting current fob contents) gives you the option to switch OS’s. If you DON’T switch os’s you get three choices current image fw vs.download latest vs. fw image you provide (which will be rejected if OS doesn’t match current os shown at top of that screen). If you ask to switch os’s, you only get latter TWO choices because current image is for the os your looking to change from.

If qnap didn’t have the wonderful option of migrating to different physical device and even entirely different model’s I suspect it would just come up with whatever current FOB os image is there without bothering to look at contents of disks at all, but it DOES LOOK at disk partitions and will look to migrate if those differ from fob image. But with DIFFERENT OS configurations on different disks (not normally possible without your choice of when you re-inserted old hero disks while powered down), the choice stretching beyond FOB image vs. DISKS image which it can handle, but by making that choice FOB image vs. NVMes image vs SSDs/HDDs image there is an issue. The modification to your procedure I have suggested or the full wipe of all disks before re-use in nas suggested by Dolbyman will prevent this quandry creating ‘unexpected behavior’.

My two latest models no longer offer ‘secure erase’ option in Storage/Snap->Disks so when I look to follow Dolbyman’s advice to wipe disks, I use a different QNAP that still has that option. If I take it to a windows pc to format, you have to manually remove those hidden partitions (q ‘secure erase’ handles that). But new or ‘wiped of all previous qnap use’ SSDs and HDDs would have bypassed issues you encountered

15

If not on the same FOB the DOM is on, how can I initialize a brand new qnap with no WWW internet connection and without providing a previously downloaded firmware image? If it isn’t stored on the DOM’s FOB, where is that firmware image stored at factory (and later updated with firmware upgrades)??

16

So, if my system doesn’t have the ‘secure erase’ option and I want to fully reset both the NAS and the disks to factory settings, the only solution is to run SSH commands or connect the disks directly to a PC to manually remove the partitions and completely wipe everything? I can’t believe it!

17

How often are you planning to go from QuTS to QTS and vice versa?

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18

I provided info on the flaw in your original process that did not involve anything more than doing the right things in the right order. Dolbyman’s alternative of wiping disks the disks before re-inserting them would work just as well and if they were wiped first, it would not matter if you had the nas powered down when you reinserted them. I didn’t say wiping the disks was the only way to go.

ALSO, read the manual on the real meaning of ‘reset to factory settings’, It does NOT mean that after doing a ‘reset to factory settings’ that your device will be as it came from factory brand new. Admittedly ‘reset to factory settings’ is a misleading name for what that choice does, even if the doc explains what it really does.

ALSO ‘reset to factor;y settings’ is NOT how to switch between hero and QTS. ‘reinitialize nas’ is the only way to go for that, clearly stated in doc.

19

Did you reformat your hard drives when switching OSes? Given that the disk formats between EXT and ZFS are completely different, I would be surprised if putting ZFS drives in a QTS NAS would work at all.

I recently switched from QTS to QuTS and I plan on staying with QuTS for the extra data security and healing you get with ZFS.

One of the confusing bits of information floating around is that if you use SSDs as your first storage group in QuTS that it becomes your “system” drive. I assumed that meant the OS would be installed just there. But as Dolbyman pointed out that is not correct. The OS is installed across all drives. The term “system” means that the default apps and folders are all installed on that storage group.