Make Multiple "volumes" ?

[jimhelfer]

I'm a new Netgear user, and am migrating my files from a traditional Windows 2003 files server with 2 completely separate disk arrays (presented to the user as F: and H:). I would like to continue that as closely as possible with this device.

However, My unit shipped as one big 8 TB drive and I can't seem any way to partition it into multiple, smaller entities. I have a feeling that I am missing a chunk of documentation somewhere, I seem to go directly from how to configure the network settings straight to how map to a drive letter.

(I don't think iSCSI will work for me because of the 2TB limit).

If someone could help me out with this confusion, I would apreciate it.

Jim

[StephenB]

You could still present mapped disks to your users as F: and H: even with the integrated volume. For instance, create an F shared folder and an H shared folder, and map those.

However if you want two volumes, you can do that. These volumes will not shown to the end user, and you will not be able to expand the capacity of the array later on. You also some lose available storage. So I am thinking you probably don't want to set it up this way. However, if you still want to do this, you begin by doing a factory reset (which starts everything over). You have 10 minutes from the time you initiate the reset to change the Raid configuration. You want to change it to use "flex raid". You can then set up two independent volumes.

BTW, how are the file permissions set up on your existing server?

[jimhelfer]

So is it just "one big disk" then? Does each share have it's own directory structure, or is it like Windows, where it's really just a different view? Can you set or limit the sizes of shares? Original thinking was to make one share 5 TB and one 3, but if they just automatically grow to house all the files stored there, that would work too.

I use standard windows ACLs assigned to groups (not user objects) for file permissions.

[StephenB]

So is it just "one big disk" then? Does each share have it's own directory structure, or is it like Windows, where it's really just a different view? Can you set or limit the sizes of shares? Original thinking was to make one share 5 TB and one 3, but if they just automatically grow to house all the files stored there, that would work too...

Yes, XRAID aggregates the disks into one large volume. Space is shared by all the shares..

You can create subfolders/directories within each share, though you cannot share the subfolders separately.

[mdgm]

StephenB that is incorrect. Under certain circumstances Flex-RAID volumes can be expanded: http://support.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19043/~/expanding-the-readynas-volume-when-in-flex-raid-mode.

[StephenB]

StephenB that is incorrect. Under certain circumstances Flex-RAID volumes can be expanded: http://support.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19043/~/expanding-the-readynas-volume-when-in-flex-raid-mode.

Good to know, I had somehow missed that.