DSM 6 + RAID5 + SHA : Disk expansion strategy

[ChAlb]

Hi,

I'm looking forward for some advices on how to safely proceed to a disk upgrade of a cluster (SHA) of 2x 1513+ (5 bays) needed with 4 x 3Tb drives + 1 x 3tb Hotspare drive.
The idea is to replace all 3Tb drives by 6Tb drives.

Current setup:

In resume :

• Storage Pool 1 (Main) is using 4 3tb drives, the 5th slot is currently used by a 3tb hot spare disk but can probably be removed during the upgrade process if it helps
• Storage Pool 2 (DX213 expansion bay) is populated with 1 x 3tb disk mainly used for backups, there is one free bay on the expansion unit

When reading Replace a Drive | DSM - Synology Knowledge Center I feel a bit preplex if this procedure will work on a SHA environment. Should I shutdown the slave node before hot swapping each drive one-by one the master node ? Or should I leave slave node up & running an also replace the drives in the same order ?

 

[Rusty]

Or should I leave slave node up & running an also replace the drives in the same order ?

From my experiences breaking the HA and then upgrading both units separately works best. The bottom line is next time you bring them into HA again, those units should both be upgraded regarding drives. If you will break them then it won't matter which unit will be upgraded 1st, but end game, both should be before initiating HA again.

Another way if you don't want to break HA is to upgrade slave 1st and then move to the main unit. In case the services fail on the master side, you should have the slave up and running (in a new drive configuration).