RAID 5 Expansion

Since this volume IS my backup, and I don't happen to have a backup of my backup (should I do a backup of the backup of the backup, and so on?)... It will take several weeks to re-do all the backups to a 24TB volume, this is a really impractical solution.

While I have been a soft raid user with three licenses for many years, I am moving away from this solution. I appreciate your goal of stability, but other RAID servers have come a long ways in terms of both combining user flexibility like what we're requesting, along with stability.

You often refer to data recovery services for other units, but then you're telling us we have to use a backup to rebuild our volume. If we have to use a backup anyway, why not risk one of those "other units" that are claimed to fail so often, and then just restore from backup, since that's what we have to do anyway?

Disk sizes change rapidly, and so do sizes of multimedia files as we've moved from SD to HD to 4k... We need flexibility to easily expand with these changes.

We do not intend to support adding disks to a volume, such as converting a 4-disk RAID 5 volume to a 5-disk RAID 5.

There is a high degree of risk, as data has to be migrated, and re-distributed around all the disks to correctly implement this. If a disk fails during this process, it could affect data integrity.

Its better for the user to create a new volume and restore from backups.

Always have at least 2 backups. At minimum two copies of your data on site, and one off site.

I hear more stories because of how I support users all over the world, but data is fungible and precious. Never rely on any source for backup.

RAID is not backup. RAID is for high data availability. It means in the event of a disk failure, you are still working. It is not the same as protecting you from catastrophe.

If ANYONE tells you RAID is the same as backup, run.

You misread.. I’ve been in IT since 1986. I know the importance of backups, thank you for ‘reminding’ me.

Now, the SOFT RAID drive is a backup for my other raid that I switched to a while ago. Nobody said I was relying on RAID redundancy AS the backup, I am not. I am relying on RAID for my backup drives so that if a drive fails I don’t have to lose all my backups and start over. (But I had to wipe a year of incremental backups because of softRAIDs inability to add a drive without a wipe).

And, yes, I have a SECOND backup of most critical data offsite. However, with over 25TB of video data, it becomes highly impractical to back it all up off-site daily. So I do that once every month by physically moving drives and just making sure the most critical data has a second backup.

Now that I have satisfied your requirements for ‘safe’ backups, I will reiterate my point. I had to wipe out a year of incremental backups because I needed to expand my RAID-5 softRAID backup volume by adding a fifth 8TB disk. I was not going to go buy $1000 of disks just to make a backup of the backup. So now it will be two plus weeks before I have a complete backup again, thank you very much.

Most other modern RAID systems I work with do not have this extreme limitation. Unless softRAID has fixed this limitation by the next time I need to expand, I will just move to another solution.

Always have at least 2 backups. At minimum two copies of your data on site, and one off site.

I hear more stories because of how I support users all over the world, but data is fungible and precious. Never rely on any source for backup.

RAID is not backup. RAID is for high data availability. It means in the event of a disk failure, you are still working. It is not the same as protecting you from catastrophe.

If ANYONE tells you RAID is the same as backup, run.

I understand your point.

This is not a feature we can add at this time. Its possible we could add this in SoftRAID 6, but it is not currently in our design plan.

While I do not believe that variable partition sizes is highly reliable, others do.

Now that I have satisfied your requirements for ‘safe’ backups, I will reiterate my point. I had to wipe out a year of incremental backups because I needed to expand my RAID-5 softRAID backup volume by adding a fifth 8TB disk. I was not going to go buy $1000 of disks just to make a backup of the backup. So now it will be two plus weeks before I have a complete backup again, thank you very much.

Most other modern RAID systems I work with do not have this extreme limitation. Unless softRAID has fixed this limitation by the next time I need to expand, I will just move to another solution.

This is not a feature we can add at this time. Its possible we could add this in SoftRAID 6, but it is not currently in our design plan.

Excuse me? How is this even possible???

I was rolling along doing a server reconfig, blissfully ignorant, and prepared to have another client of mine (3rd or 4th, I think) purchase the full $179 SoftRAID, assuming it would again be a good option for running a RAID5 inside a Mac Pro (5,1) I’m using for this server. So I downloaded the SoftRAID trial and got started.

My plan was to migrate from a 4-disk NAS box that wasn’t working very well to an internal setup on the Mac Pro. I had about 1.5TB used on one 2TB NAS disk that I had already moved over, and several hundred more GB on another disk, then the remaining 3 NAS 2TB disks. No problem, I thought, I will create a 3-disk RAID5 w/ those disks, copy everything from the first NAS disk (and the other data disk) onto the RAID5, then “reunite” the first NAS disk w/ his other 3 buddies in the RAID5 to yield the full, 4-disk, 6TB usable capacity that it’s supposed to have. I was quite curious as to why “Add Disk…” was greyed out, did a quick search, and was then shocked to find this answer.

So……..really? A near-$200 software disk tool that can set up a RAID5, but has NO WAY to add new members to it? EVER??? I’m sorry, but if that’s the case, then ALL of your product sales need to be downgraded to $49 SoftRAID Lite (yes, even adding this crippled RAID5 management to it). So now I’m locked into 3 disks, and after all of my migration and reconfiguring of the share points, etc, my only option is to trash it and start again?? I cannot fathom that such a basic need for a RAID would be omitted, regardless of whether it’s a process that could put the array at (temporary) risk. You’re getting $179 a pop for something that we will mostly just set and forget…figure it out!

I’m a little bit sorry to just launch into a rant, but I’m really slack-jawed at this omission, AND the fact that you’re not even considering it for SoftRAID 6. Having the disks inside the Mac Pro w/ a software RAID manager that appeared to work well enough previously seemed like a no-brainer in this case. But I definitely won’t be spending so much to be so limited and future-UNproofed. This rude awakening has basically shut the door on any other scenarios I might have considered SoftRAID for in other setups for other clients. It’s such a basic need, I just assumed it was there all along… :-(

Sorry you assumed that. There is a major problem with implementing this, which is data security/reliability.

Cheap hardware RAID enclosures can do this, as they control all the hardware. SoftRAID does not. Adding drives to an existing volume has risk to it, which can be mitigated somewhat by controlling the hardware. Since users can and do use SoftRAID with all kinds of hardware, some reliable, some not, we are extremely reluctant to consider this feature.

We need to get RAID 6 implemented and several other important new features into SoftRAID, before we would think about this.

Keep in mind that all users should have at least one backup. I do not advise anyone to put their only copy of important data in one place. You probably know, but for other readers, all data should have at LEAST one local copy and one off site (or cloud based) backup. Not only can fires or unforseen problems happen, but ransomware has become more and more sophisticated, so it is not hard to lose everything. Data is valuable and fungible, so I don't like hearing about users who rely on RAID for "backup". (rant over)

Adding disks to RAID volumes is requested by users at times and we do listen. At the same time, we listen to professional data recovery services who remind us how often this "feature" can result in data loss, requiring their (very expensive) services. Its no something we want to jump into, hence why are are unlikely to implement this feature.

Sorry if this is not what you want to hear. But we are listening, and do not mind users pushing for features they feel are important. ;-)