Single NVMe as system drive

German
1

Hello everyone,

Since I am currently working on a similar project – but without purchasing a new NAS – I wanted to share my experiences so far.

I am running a QNAP TS-473A with four 4TB HDDs in a RAID-5 (legacy, no storage pool). The goal is to move the system to a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  1. Created a full backup of the system settings

  2. Shut down the NAS and removed all HDDs

  3. Installed the M.2 NVMe SSD and started the NAS to initialize it

  4. Created a “Static Volume” (no pool) on the NVMe

  5. The NVMe volume was correctly displayed as “(System)”

  6. Restarted the NAS – system worked flawlessly

  7. Shut down the NAS again and reinserted the HDDs

  8. Started the NAS and searched for the existing RAID-5 in the storage manager and had it restored

  9. Checked if all data was present, then restarted

  10. Checked the volumes: NVMe SSD was still marked as “(System)”

  11. Restored the previously backed up system settings

  12. After another restart, checked: All data and settings present, NVMe SSD still “(System)”

After that, I shut down the NAS to continue today.

However, after booting up this morning, I had to realize that no shares were present on the NVMe volume anymore. A look into the storage manager explained why:

The HDD RAID is marked as “(System)” again. So unfortunately, all the effort was in vain.

Does anyone have an idea why the TS-473A is declaring the HDD RAID as the system again?

Did I miss or do something wrong at any point?

The QNAP guide linked above was not known to me before, but basically describes exactly my procedure – just without a new device.

As an alternative, I could of course get an external 8TB HDD, back up the data, and set up the whole process again from scratch. In that case, I would of course completely recreate the HDD RAID.

I would like to avoid this additional effort if possible.

I also fear that after reconfiguring the HDD RAID, the TS-473A will migrate the system there again.

Does anyone here have experience with an M.2 SSD as a system drive and a separate HDD RAID as pure data storage?

And YES. I am aware of the risks of using a single M.2 SSD instead of 2 in RAID1. I might change that later. But for now, I only have one M.2 SSD available for testing…

NAS Upgrade with Disk Migration + new SSD
2

Please post only in German in the German subforum.

Is a backup already available? (If not, this should be the first investment)

Afterwards, as already noted, NEVER install the system volume on single SSDs.

3

Sorry, I didn’t realize I ended up in a non-German subforum.

I’ll still create a backup.

Yes, I know that having only one SSD is a risk. But I’m willing to take that risk.

The current question is: why did the TS-473A set the HDD RAID as SYSTEM again after the whole process, and how can I prevent this in the future?

4

Hello,

Restoring the old system backup is likely the issue.

It’s probably the same post.

5

Correct. I only “cross-posted” here for safety.

In the meantime, however, I’ve realized that while this approach does give me the expected “performance boost,” it doesn’t actually solve the main problem.

Because of the annoying topic of “internal SYSTEM RAID” (md9 / md13), the “HDD RAID” still won’t be able to rest as long as the system is busily writing log files and such, which are then replicated across all internal storage devices in the TS-473A.

Today I also tried submitting a ticket to QNAP to ask if there’s an official way to remove the HDDs from this SYSTEM RAID. However, I’m currently unable to submit a ticket. Both the website and the Helpdesk Manager on the device just return an error when I try to send the ticket…

I’m slowly starting to wonder why QNAP even included the feature that allows the hard drives to go into standby. If it’s clear that this SYSTEM RAID is constantly writing some kind of data to all storage devices anyway.

6

QNAP now writes more logs and other data to md9 and md13 than before… as you know, disk standby usually only works by force (kicking md9 and md13 off the spinning disks).

That’s just how it is, but it’s safer than the tears the QNAP support would have to endure if a user’s NAS with a single NVMe and no backups fails. (If a user does this deliberately and voluntarily, the blame is clear.)

7

On the one hand, thank you for your answer. On the other hand, I find the condescending tone it contains quite regrettable.

It’s not for nothing that I wrote in both the first and second post that I am very much aware of what the worst case would mean if I implemented the whole thing with a single SSD. I also already wrote in the first post that I will certainly switch to two SSDs, since I only had one available for testing at the moment.

I think I have made myself more than clear on this and that it’s not necessary to harp on it in every response, or am I wrong?

But now, back to the actual topic: yes, I am aware that QTS now writes more log files and such. Yes, I am also aware that I can prevent this via SSH. However, it would be nicer if QNAP made the system RAID visually visible and changeable through an official option (for example, via an Expert Mode in the Storage and Snapshot Manager).

8

You asked why QNAP does this..and I told you what would happen if QNAP did not. Just because you do understand the inner workings of a NAS, does not mean that everyday users do and we all know that these user mostly have no backups.