Redoing install w/smaller drives (14TB) instead of 18TB so I can expand...

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Redoing install w/smaller drives (14TB) instead of 18TB so I can expand...

jann

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Hello, all. First post so forgive me if I either go into too much detail or too little.
I was the victim of bad pre-purchase instructions from a tech at Synology.
I have a Drobo 5c with 5 drives. 14TB, 14TB, 12TB, 10TB, 10TB.
I wanted a Synology DS1520+ (which I bought) and it was suggested by the tech support guy that I buy 2 of the larges EXOS drives I could afford now, install them, start a partial copy from my Drobo until I could begin removing the 14tb drives as my space needs declined, then insert those into my 1520+ and expand the SHR1 storage pool.
I know know - according to someone ELSE at tech support, that was the exact WRONG thing to do. I should've bought those 18's, replaced the 14's in the Drobo with that, did the initial install on my 1520+ with the 14TB's, then add the 18TB's when all the data was moved and the pool could expand.

SO, I am stuck with EITHER:
A: Buying two more 18tb's and putting them in the 1520 with the current 2 18TB's and forgetting all the other drives ($950 ... NOT gonna happen)
B: starting a separate pool (and volume) with the 2 14TB's, copying across the data, killing all the apps (plex, etc) and things that were on that pool, then re-adding the 18TB's to the 14TB's cos the 18TB's are larger and they SHOULD allow the SHR1 pool to expand.
C: leave the current system as-is, add the 14TB's in a separate pool AND volume (but this would require me to split my data and be congnizant of where everything is at all times...)

BUT some on here have said you can replace larger drives with smaller drives if you purposefully "fail" one of the two 18TB's drives in the pool, replace it with the 14TB AS LONG as the space-in-use is less than the 11.xTB the 14tb would net me, then the space will shrink to the capacity of the 14TB drive, then add another 14TB drive back after it heals, then add the 18 again and it should balance.

Is this correct? or am I screwed? (sorry... this has been a bad week!)

If I not correct, is there an easy way to back up all the "installed" apps - Plex is the only one I'm really concerned about ) and settings from a storage pool to - say - a usb c drive, so I can recreate the storage pool with the right information on it and drives in place?

Thanks!
I would so appreciate help if someone knows more about finessing storage pools than I do. I'm good at tech, but new to the Synology game.

ps: I did see this post: Replacing a large drive with a smaller drive in SHR-1 but they didn't do what I did and want to further add disks...

BTW: did anyone try to use this method to copy and re-link package? Synology - Moving a package between volumes - vEducate.co.uk
Jann
 
Solution
So you have 2x18 TB presently... and 3 empty slots? Yes?

And you have less than 12 TB on the 2x18 TB array?

If so, create a new SHR pool with 2x14 TB, then relocate the shared folders to the new pool/volume. When complete, delete the 18 TB pool. Reformat those drives (externally) and then add them to the 2x14TB pool. With SHR, you should have then 14+14+18= 46 TB (approx)

With more than 12 TB (but less than 20 TB) on the 2x18 TB array, pull one of the 18 TB drives and create a new SHR pool with that along with the 2x14 TB drives. Then relocate... etc. per above
OMG Folks!
Thank you ALL! Yes, @Telos, @Rusty, and yes, you @fredbert!

To make a long story short, I did exactly what y'all said and wha'dya' know! It worked like a damned CHARM! I did NOT copy Plex via ssh/mv/ln -s, etc. I simply moved the Plex shared folder to volume2 how @fredbert and @Telos told me to, said a little prayer, turned the Synology off, pulled the 18TB, then back on. I reinstalled Plex, it saw everything and voila! All was well!

Except - and I'm noting this for anyone else doing this: MAKE SURE TO DELETE YOUR SSD READ/WRITE CACHE (NVME2?) if you have one!
I didn't know to look and started getting DSM warnings in Storage Manager with the cryptic (and scary) "Volume/LUN Missing!" and when I tried to do anything (except delete it) it gave me a "your volume will crash if you remove the SSD CACHE"!

Well, I "crashed" my volume1's storage pool on purpose when I pulled the 18tb and I FROZE until I realize that is what it was talking about. I removed the cache, and re-did the add of the cache to volume2...and (after about 5 min of the Synology "thinking") all was well.

Thanks, all!

ps: so, can someone please tell me how to mark this thread "solved"?
 
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