Procedure to remove volume

[maarten]

One of my hard disks in my NAS (DS920+; DSM 6.2.3) has bad sectors. I want to remove this hard disk completely but when I choose to remove the volume DSM refuses because a long of applications still using the volume. It says I have to uninstall the packages mentioned. But in the list are; "Analysis tools, docker, Surveillance Station, Download station etc. How can I safely remove the volume and hard disk without having to uninstall my whole system?

 

[fredbert]

How have you configured this volume? Is it using a multi-disk storage pool (SHR, RAID 1, RAID 5 etc) or a single-disk/non-resilient storage pool (e.g. Basic, RAID 0, or JBOD)?

Can you provide more information and screenshots from Storage Manager.

Do you have a current, full backup of this volume?

 

[maarten]

I don't have a full backup because it was just a volume (with one older HD) to test how to setup Synology. I've switched from QNAP so I wanted to do some testing. But I can always make a backup

BTW Is there a good manual or tutorial how to switch from QNAP to Synology?

 

[Rusty]

I don't have a full backup because it was just a volume (with one older HD) to test how to setup Synology. I've switched from QNAP so I wanted to do some testing. But I can always make a backup

Wipe the drive on a pc and then start fresh on a syno appliance.

BTW Is there a good manual or tutorial how to switch from QNAP to Synology?

Something specific or in general?

 

[fredbert]

Lots of support documentation here.

Navigate Desktop | DSM - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

www.synology.com

If you only have one disk in the NAS then removing it will remove the all the DSM setup: there isn't some flash storage on the circuit board that holds DSMs, only the loader that gets the NAS up and running.

Each disk that's in the NAS will be formatted and configured with a small(ish) partition that holds DSM: you can then lose any disk and DSM [should] still run. But the remaining large part of the disk will be assigned to storage: this will then be available for making a storage pool (or storage pools). A storage pool can then hold one or more volumes. The default installation is to take all installed disks and make one storage pool (SHR-1 or SHR-2) with one volume.

The volume will then be used to hold Shared Folders (look in Control Panel and Edit a storage pool: see how you can change which volume it is on, if you have another volume) and Packages. Unlike Shared Folders, Package Center's setting doesn't allude to the fact that they are installed on a volume until you have more than one volume. Then there will be an option to set which volume to install Packages and their data, or it will ask each time you install a package.

Also unlike Storage Pools, there is no simple [documented] way to move a package and it's data to another volume once it has been installed. A google will throw up some methods that rely on SSH access.


As for not losing the current single disk SHR setup then you have two options:

1. Add a second drive of the same or larger size and make the SHR into 'with 1 disk redundancy', similar to RAID 1.
2. Make a Hyper Backup archive and then rebuild the NAS and restore from the archive.

 

[maarten]

Lots of support documentation here.

Navigate Desktop | DSM - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

www.synology.com

If you only have one disk in the NAS then removing it will remove the all the DSM setup: there isn't some flash storage on the circuit board that holds DSMs, only the loader that gets the NAS up and running.

Each disk that's in the NAS will be formatted and configured with a small(ish) partition that holds DSM: you can then lose any disk and DSM [should] still run. But the remaining large part of the disk will be assigned to storage: this will then be available for making a storage pool (or storage pools). A storage pool can then hold one or more volumes. The default installation is to take all installed disks and make one storage pool (SHR-1 or SHR-2) with one volume.

The volume will then be used to hold Shared Folders (look in Control Panel and Edit a storage pool: see how you can change which volume it is on, if you have another volume) and Packages. Unlike Shared Folders, Package Center's setting doesn't allude to the fact that they are installed on a volume until you have more than one volume. Then there will be an option to set which volume to install Packages and their data, or it will ask each time you install a package.

Also unlike Storage Pools, there is no simple [documented] way to move a package and it's data to another volume once it has been installed. A google will throw up some methods that rely on SSH access.


As for not losing the current single disk SHR setup then you have two options:

1. Add a second drive of the same or larger size and make the SHR into 'with 1 disk redundancy', similar to RAID 1.
2. Make a Hyper Backup archive and then rebuild the NAS and restore from the archive.

thanks FredBert, option 1 looks ok.

I have 4 disks in this 4 bay NAS:

Volume 2 contains 1 HD and Volume 3 has 2 (SHR).

@Rusty @fredbert What's the change that Docker and other applications become corrupt when I simply remove the hard disk which contains volume 1?

@Rusty: I'm looking for a good general tutorial

 

[fredbert]

thanks FredBert, option 1 looks ok.

But you've already used all four bays, if what you say is right: two single drive volumes and a dual-drive volume = 4 drives. So you don't have any bays left to add a second drive to the failing Volume 1.

@Rusty @fredbert What's the change that Docker and other applications become corrupt when I simply remove the hard disk which contains volume 1?

Since your packages [applications], and their data, are installed on Volume 1 then you will lose all those. That's why you got the alert in the original post.

If Hyper Backup supports backing up a package then you can do that: make the HB backup; uninstall package from Volume 1; select Package Center to install on the new volume; restore the package from the HB backup. It's not a process I've done much so there may be some steps to check ... personally I'd install a new package I don't use and then test out the process on it, only then moving onto the other packages.

Source | Hyper Backup - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

www.synology.com

As for Docker, this isn't supported by Hyper Backup so the best thing is to export each container and reimport once you've moved the package to the new volume.


Or you google the SSH steps to do it: looks fairly simple but I've never to done it.

 

[Rusty]

I'm looking for a good general tutorial

I can't add anything else that @fredbert didn't cover. As for a tutorial for qnap > syno migration, not sure I have seen a general one. On the other hand, both are similar for general usage, and even some packages have the same function, just a different name, and design.

 

[Telos]

I'm looking for a good general tutorial

While I don't know your competency... there is a good introductory NAS setup series on YouTube nu "mydoodads".

It doesn't address QNAP, but gives a good top-level understanding of DSM and its primary packages.