There are several enhancements in ReadyNAS OS 6.7 relating to Flex-RAID volume management.
Factory Default on ReadyNAS with larger than 12 bays
From a factory defaulted state, ReadyNAS creates a volume based on the following table.
| Number of hard drives | RAID type |
| 1 | JBOD |
| 2 | RAID 1 |
| < 6 | RAID 5 on a <= 6 bay chassis, RAID 6 on a >6 bay chassis. |
| <= 14 | RAID 6 |
| 15-19 | RAID 50 (3 stripes) with global spares |
| 20-24 | RAID 50 (4 stripes) with global spares |
| 25-29 | RAID 50 (5 stripes) with global spares |
| 30-44 | RAID 60 (2 stripes) with global spares |
| 45-59 | RAID 60 (3 stripes) with global spares |
| 60 | RAID 60 (4 stripes) |
| >60 | ReadyNAS will not create a volume across expansion chassis. |
Note: ReadyNAS chassis with 6 bays and 6 populated disks will factory default with RAID 5. Any ReadyNAS with more than 6 bays that factory defaults with 6 bays will be a RAID 6.
Volume Creation
If you destroy and re-create the default volume, the updated volume management appears during the creation stage. The volume manager will allow you to customize your volume for performance, reliability, and capacity.
You'll need to select the RAID level. If this is an expanded array, you will need to specify the more finite details, such as how many stripes and how many global spares.
RAID Group (stripe)
RAID Group expansion, or striping, allows you to add more RAIDs to an existing volume. This can be configured at volume creation or later on.
- When adding a new RAID group, the drives need to match the existing amount of drives in a RAID group.
- Expansion for RAID0 stripe and concatenated will be an option in an expansion wizard.
- We allow converting between both concatenated and RAID 0 Stripe.
| RAID Group Expansion type | Rules (for pop-ups or warnings) |
| Initial Expansion | Pop-up wizard |
| Existing RAID0 Stripe | Requires the same size or larger drives Requires the same number of drives as the other RAID groups |
| Existing Concatenated | Requires the same size or larger drives Does not require the same number of drives |
| Convert | Check the rules in Existing RAID0 Striping and Existing Concatenated Available in Volumes > Settings > Summary |
Global Spares
ReadyNAS OS 6 has always supported Global Spares, though they were considered implicit. If you had an unused disk in the ReadyNAS in Flex-RAID, the ReadyNAS would implicitly grab that unused disk to bring your volume back to redundancy in the event of a failure. As of OS 6.7, the ReadyNAS allows you to explicitly set a Global Spare disk. For example, if you do not have explicit Global Spares, and still have unused disks in the chassis, then the ReadyNAS will still pull in unused drives in the event of a disk failure. If you have an explicitly marked Global Spare, the ReadyNAS will always try to pull the explicit Global Spare before it tries to grab an implicit Global Spare. All unused disks are considered implicit spare drives.