What the %$#^& is "Deactivate Drive"?

[akahan]

I've never noticed this before, but in Storage Manager, if you go to HDD/SSD, and select a drive, and click the "Actions" button, one of the options is the rather scary looking "Deactivate".

If you choose Drive 1, and are brave enough to click on "Deactivate," you get a warning: "This action will kick Drive 1 out of the associated storage pool, volume, and system partition."

Whaaat?

So what would that do to the data in the volume? I would LOVE it if this option means I can, at will, remove, say, two of four drives the storage pool, and have the storage pool essentially shrink to two drives, and then create a new storage pool with the drives I just deactivated. But that seems too good to be true. I can find NO documentation on this feature. Anyone know what it does?

There's a post on the "other forum," here, that purports to answer the question, but it's not clear whether the author knows what he's talking about: Synology Community

 

[Rusty]

Regardless of what the option means, pulling one drive out of the array will put that same array in the degraded mode. You will not be able to shrink a volume to a smaller number of drives unless you destroy it and start again.

 

[akahan]

That's what I expected, Rusty; I mean, it would be lovely, but there's no magical way to reformat a Storage Pool without deleting the data within. Anyway, I just tried the Deactivate Button, and it did exactly what you thought it would: It was the same as if I had just pulled the drive out of the DiskStation by hand. It invites me to put in another drive, and then Repair the Storage Pool.

 

[Rusty]

there's no magical way to reformat a Storage Pool without deleting the data within

Nope

 

[fredbert]

not here but maybe over the 🌈

 

[jann]

Okay, folks. I *know* this thread is over a year old, but just exactly WHY can't we remove a drive? I just wonder. If our precious Synology can expand itself, it can CERTAINLY reduce itself (if there's space avail). My point being I have all my larger drives in my storage pool. (18,18,14,14,12). I HAVE the older drives in a cabinet (8,8,8,8,8). I would LOVE to be able to use the 8's if a drive failure occurred OR reduce the drive capacity by removing the 12 and putting something else as a hot swap.

It is inconceivable that they can expand a drive, but not reduce it. They could, but they don't!

Just my $.02...

 

[Robbie]

@jann As you say, an old thread but now with added confusion.

- Firstly you ask why it cannot be done.
- Secondly you state that it 'certainly' can be done.

Which is it?
Who is 'they'?