Replacing drives with larger drives - 5Big Network 2

[pdsingle]

Can I replace the five 2TB drives with larger ones, say 3TB or 4TB drives, using the stock Lacie firmware?
Will the stock Lacie firmware 2.2.12.2 read drives larger than 2 TB?

[fvdw]

I don't know you will need to try. But as the 5big2 bootloader and kernel support GPT partionion type it might be likely that it will work. Our firmware support it in any case. My experience with stick Lacie firmware is limited ;)

[Jocko]

Hi

You should be able to use 3TB disk (as a version 15TB was provided by Lacie). pleae to note the firmware is stored in the disk and you will have to re-install it on your new disk. (it is not clear for me if all users succeeded to do it in all cases...) but you may try to swap them one by one (it is a long way...)

AFAIK, your nas can not support fully 4TB disk. At least, you have a 16 TB limit on the filesytem size (CPU limit). This one would be reach if you want to use a raid5

[ChrilleCrull]

Hi, I Have a Lacie 5Big Network V2 what I have read this does support GPT for larger disks than 2TB.

Although it does not seem to be able to use disks larger than 2Tb. Its only reads 1,6 Tb on a 4 TB disk. I wanted to switch out the 1Tb disks with 4TB.

To get the firmware to the new 4Tb disk I kept one 1TB disk in Bay 1 and put the 4TB disk in Bay 2. I then added The 4Tb disk as a single disk to get the firmware on to it.
I then replaced the 1TB from Bay 1 with the 4TB disk containing the Firmware and Single disk setting in Bay1.
I then filled up Bay2 and Bay3 with two more 4TB disks and fired the NAS up.

I did a new raid setup with the three 4TB disk. I did a raid 0 just to see how big volume I would get and its a dissapointing 5,4TB.

If the 5Big Netwoork V2 is compatible with GPT how do I access it? Im getting a tad frustrated :elec)

[fvdw]

Which firmware do you use? Lacie or fvdw-sl ?

[ChrilleCrull]

I have tried booth, first i used stock firmware and then i found this forum and used fvdw-sl-console-6-17-0-5jun2017-32bits

When i use fvdw-sl i cant get the disk to boot when runnint reboot -f

I have tried the option write firmware to disk with UIMAGE-3142-KIRKWOOD-158-standalone
I have tried the option install firmware also with UIMAGE-3142-KIRKWOOD-158-standalone

I have tried installing fvdw-sl-programs and also tried downloading the updated fvdw-sl-installer-3-1.sh and renamed the old.

When running fvdw-sl-Programs I have tried
1. Install fwdv-sl Firmware on to harddrive
2. Write fvdw-sl Firmware image to partition 1,2 or 7

In the next step I also select Lacie Kirkwood 5big2 (It feels like the right one?)

Everything seems to go well but in the end when doing the reboot It stops right after U-Boot i think. I not able to telnet to it and it does not show up in my DHCP.

Maby my GPT table on the disk is wrong?

I put the 1TB disk with my original firmware in Bay1 and moved my 4 TB disk to Bay 2 booted and got in to web gui. There I set up the 4TB as a single disk and the output gave me a massive 512MB :laughat

This is what i got when I did a partition scan.

root@fvdw-sta-kirkwood:/ # gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.5

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 7814037168 sectors, 3.6 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 7814037134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4062 sectors (2.0 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 4096 1052671 512.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
2 1052672 2101247 512.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
3 2101248 3149823 512.0 MiB 8200 Linux swap
4 3149824 3166207 8.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
5 3166208 4739071 768.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
6 4739072 4755455 8.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
7 4755456 5804031 512.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
8 5804032 7814037134 3.6 TiB 8300 Linux filesystem
root@fvdw-sta-kirkwood:/ #

[fvdw]

Be aware that lacie firmware uses a different partition setup compared with fvdw-sl. Lacie uses sdx2 as data partition. Thats why you get 512 MB during your trial with the 1 TB orginal lacie firmware disk in slot 1 and the 4TB disk in slot 2.

Further using a fvdw-sl disk on lacie firmware may gave strange results as the lacie firmware may format some partitions of the fvdw-sl disk making it non functional or influence filesystems on the different partitions. :disapprove . So don't do that use a fvdw-sl system disk (4 TB) and add extra disks after setting up the system disk.

Now lets try a step by step approach, what do you see in the fvdw-sl webinterface as disk size when you put your 4TB disk in slot 1 and after installing fvdw-sl on that disk and booting the fvdw-sl firmware. It should show about 3.6 TB
If thats the case then your 5big2 recognize GPT correctly

[fvdw]

Ps it is quite possible that the kernel of the lacie firmware that you use doesn't support GPT. If thats the case it explains why you get using lacie firmware only 1.6 TB pee disk.

The fvdw-sl kernel has support for GPT. So you should b able to use them. However to get the sytem loaded from a disk having a GPT partition table the bootloader must support it. Now the 5big2 I have seen all had a bootloader with gpt support but maybe yours doesn't ???
To check if your bootloader supports GPT partition table. Install fvdw-sl on your 4 TB disk using GPT as partition table and see if it boots and webgui becomes available. If thats the case your bootloader supports GPT and shoul be able to liad fvdw-sl from a 4 TB disk.

[ChrilleCrull]

Ok thanks that explains the 512mb that shows.

It does not boot with Fvdw-sl installed on the 4TB disk with GPT table installed.
It just stops booting after the "U-Boat"


Do I Need to Flash a new bootloader on to the NAS then ?

[fvdw]

Remarkable that the bootloader doesn't support GPT, this must either a modified unit or a very early one with old bootloader.
You could open an uboot console window using the fvdw-sl console and on the marvell prompt give command printenv and post result. From that it might be possible to confirm if we have a non gpt uboot version.

In principle you have two options.
1. Use as sda a disk with max size 2TB install fvdw-sl on it and add 4 pcs 4TB disks in the other slots. Fvdw-sl has gpt support so when loaded from disk sda it can acces the other disk using gpt partition tables.
2. Flash uboot. I need to check if I have one for 5big2. Be aware when you flash uboot with a wrong image or when flashing fails for another reason your 5big2 becomes a brick. In additionthe max size of a raid array is 16 TB. So using 4 4TB disk will give you that. Therfor Option 1 may be preferable.