Jump to content
XPEnology Community

[Guide] How to expand the volume if DSM doesn't want to


Recommended Posts

Many thanks for the input.

To be clear to those of us (me) who are not reading between the lines.

1. The first step is to download Ubuntu Desktop 64-bits and boot it up. This way we do not have to try to stop all the Synology services running.

I assume I am looking for an Ubuntu ISO image to burn to CD. From there I boot from the CD on the Syno box that contains the non expanding disk capacity?

Any particular ver of Ubuntu (I would assume 14x)

 

Cheers

MF

 

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/put-ubuntu ... g-windows/

 

Starting BU process now but expect a couple of days of work as there is 8TB to move

Edited by Guest
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many thanks for the input.

To be clear to those of us (me) who are not reading between the lines.

1. The first step is to download Ubuntu Desktop 64-bits and boot it up. This way we do not have to try to stop all the Synology services running.

I assume I am looking for an Ubuntu ISO image to burn to CD. From there I boot from the CD on the Syno box that contains the non expanding disk capacity?

Any particular ver of Ubuntu (I would assume 14x)

 

Cheers

MF

The reason for why I didn't elaborated that was because it might differ a lot how people run DSM. As for me I've switched from Hyper-V to ESXI white some might use other hypervisors or even physical hardware. :smile:

I've added the link to the ISO-file. If you are on a physical machine either burn the CD or use make a USB-drive from the image. After that's done insert the CD/USB and boot the machine running DSM/the volume you want to expand. I've updated my post, hope it helps. :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[Moved this guide to the first page so it's easier to find]

I am using shr and not shr2. What should i do diffrent in the steps you described?

Do you have a diskgroup? If not then the steps should be the same. Not tested, but I don't see the reason why they shouldn't work.

The reason I say this is that the only difference between SHR and SHR2 is that either raid5 or 6 is used when creating the mdadm-raid.

 

Since we do not issue any other commands then assemble the mdadm-raid, you should be fine. :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[Moved this guide to the first page so it's easier to find]

I am using shr and not shr2. What should i do diffrent in the steps you described?

Do you have a diskgroup? If not then the steps should be the same. Not tested, but I don't see the reason why they shouldn't work.

The reason I say this is that the only difference between SHR and SHR2 is that either raid5 or 6 is used when creating the mdadm-raid.

 

Since we do not issue any other commands then assemble the mdadm-raid, you should be fine. :smile:

I dont have an disk group. Onley an volume. And the thing is i dont have storage to backupp. Butt dont have any other solution then to try this.

 

do I need to install ubunto or just try it on the usb stick?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok guys, here's an update:

 

I'm not responsible if you screw up by following these steps.

Always do a complete backup before attempting anything like this.

 

Why does my volume not expand?

Even after several tried I'm not sure what the reason is that DSM does not expand. The only thing I can confirm is that there is NO 16TB limit, even though I thought so in the beginning. The log files either show that you are out of reserved GDT blocks or that the volume has expanded successfully even though it didn't. DSM is basically just using LVM and mdadm so it's not a problem to expand it by hand in a safe way. Most guides on the web tell you to do this through SSH, but since most people struggle just to unmount the volume, here's a much easier way.

 

How to expand your volume

These guidelines are tested with SHR2 and a single volume only, no disk group! SHR should be fine too, but normal raid-setups do not use lvm as far as I know. Even thought the concept would be the same, the commands would differ (instead of expanding though lvm you would probably just use mdadm).

Anyway....

 

1. The first step is to download Ubuntu Desktop 64-bits and boot it up. This way we do not have to try to stop all the Synology services running. How this is done depends on your hardware and if you are running DSM on a physical or virtual machine. Basically just download the ISO and either burn it to a CD or make a bootable USB-drive from it. Then insert and boot it on the machine running DSM.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

 

2. Once booted up, we need to install mdadm as it's not included by default. Just accept the default values, they don't matter in this case:

sudo apt-get install mdadm

 

3. Now we need to assemble the raid. Once done it should tell you that the raid is assembled.

sudo mdadm --assemble --scan

 

4. We now need to get lvm to load the volume. Run the following commands in the right sequence. What it does is: load necessary module, scan for lvm volumes, activate volume and find local volume:

sudo modprobe dm-mod

sudo vgscan

sudo vgchange -ay vg1000

sudo lvs

 

5. Now we can run the file system check. This may take some time:

sudo fsck.ext4 -fvp /dev/vg1000/lv

 

6. Now we expand the volume. This may take a while! You may open a new terminal window and use "top" in order to see what's going on:

sudo resize2fs -fpF /dev/vg1000/lv

 

7. Just reboot the system, remove the CD and boot into DSM. It should be all green, no crashed volume!

Did this guide help you out? Please consider a small donation. :smile:

 

 

just tried youre guide and it worked like a charm an was very easy to do :smile: Thank you NeoID so much for youre guide :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disclaimer:

I'm not responsible if you screw up by following these steps.

Always do a complete backup before attempting anything like this.

 

Why does my volume not expand?

Even after several tried I'm not sure what the reason is that DSM does not expand. The only thing I can confirm is that there is NO 16TB limit, even though I thought so in the beginning. The log files either show that you are out of reserved GDT blocks or that the volume has expanded successfully even though it didn't. DSM is basically just using LVM and mdadm so it's not a problem to expand it by hand in a safe way. Most guides on the web tell you to do this through SSH, but since most people struggle just to unmount the volume, here's a much easier way.

 

How to expand your volume

These guidelines are tested with SHR2 and a single volume only, no disk group! SHR should be fine too, but normal raid-setups do not use lvm as far as I know. Even thought the concept would be the same, the commands would differ (instead of expanding though lvm you would probably just use mdadm).

Anyway....

 

1. The first step is to download Ubuntu Desktop 64-bits and boot it up. This way we do not have to try to stop all the Synology services running. How this is done depends on your hardware and if you are running DSM on a physical or virtual machine. Basically just download the ISO and either burn it to a CD or make a bootable USB-drive from it. Then insert and boot it on the machine running DSM.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

 

2. Once booted up (try without installing), we need to install mdadm as it's not included by default. Just accept the default values, they don't matter in this case:

sudo apt-get install mdadm

 

3. Now we need to assemble the raid. Once done it should tell you that the raid is assembled.

sudo mdadm --assemble --scan

 

4. We now need to get lvm to load the volume. Run the following commands in the right sequence. What it does is: load necessary module, scan for lvm volumes, activate volume and find local volume:

sudo modprobe dm-mod

sudo vgscan

sudo vgchange -ay vg1000

sudo lvs

 

5. Now we can run the file system check. This may take some time:

sudo fsck.ext4 -fvp /dev/vg1000/lv

 

6. Now we expand the volume. This may take a while! You may open a new terminal window and use "top" in order to see what's going on:

sudo resize2fs -fpF /dev/vg1000/lv

 

7. Just reboot the system, remove the CD and boot into DSM. It should be all green, no crashed volume!

Did this guide help you out? Please consider a small donation. :smile:

 

Despite being a complete Linux noob (had to do some figuring out along the way) this procedure worked perfectly. Many thanks for your help. It's not good to be thirsty

Cheers

MF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I tried to expand my SHR Volume (2 disks) with another one and it failed.

I have a HP Microserver ProLiant Gen8 with ESXi 5.5 und and raw-disk-mapped the hdds to the VM Xpenology DSM 5.0-4493 Update 2 (nanoboot).

 

The log says:

 

Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: space_internal_lib.c:309 Failed to migrate '/dev/md2' from RAID 1 to RAID 5
Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: space_internal_lib.c:568 Failed to migrate RAID 1 to RAID 5: [/dev/md2] with disk [/dev/sdc5]
Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: space_shr_add_disk.c:53 failed to add partition to space: /dev/vg1000/lv [0x0D00 string_sep_pair.c:54]
Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: space_expand.c:323 failed to add disk into SHR.
Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: space_lib.cpp:1423 failed to expand space: /dev/vg1000/lv [0x8000 space_expand.c:322]
Jul 29 12:23:59 HP volumehandler.cgi: volumehandler.cpp:546 failed to expand space: /volume1

 

Can maybe somebody confirm that the process described in the first post could help me?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
I just putt my 7th disk n and run the guide butt it just says "making dependency tree" it has been like this for a cuple of days :sad:. what to do?

it says in the top command in the therminal that the resize is using upp to 100% of the cpu.

Sorry, I have not seen that issue before. I've followed the guide again yesterday with the latest DSM and can confirm that everything worked perfectly. Are you maybe using encrypted folders in DSM?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just putt my 7th disk n and run the guide butt it just says "making dependency tree" it has been like this for a cuple of days :sad:. what to do?

it says in the top command in the therminal that the resize is using upp to 100% of the cpu.

Sorry, I have not seen that issue before. I've followed the guide again yesterday with the latest DSM and can confirm that everything worked perfectly. Are you maybe using encrypted folders in DSM?

 

no encrypted folders. and have the latest dsm and updates. it apers that onley the cpu is working butt not the harddrives when it says it is resizing. I rebooted the computer to se if anything had happened butt it had not. I booted with xpenology and it says I can expant the volume butt it dose not work in dsm. and nothing happens when I run the guide.

is there something to do with the warnings I got?

got two warnings when I typed ing the command "sudo apt-get install mdadm" that it "faild to detect canonical device of overlayfs" and "could not determine root device from /etc/fstab mdadm: cannot open /dev/md/2: No such file or directory.

this is what is in my fstab file from the /etc/fstab

"none /proc proc defaults 0 0

/dev/root / ext4 defaults 1 1

/dev/vg1000/lv /volume1 ext4 usrjquota=aquota.user,grpjquota=aquota.group,jqfmt=vfsv0,synoacl 0 0"

 

 

found this butt don't understand what it means.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/316486/p ... ing-update

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just putt my 7th disk n and run the guide butt it just says "making dependency tree" it has been like this for a cuple of days :sad:. what to do?

it says in the top command in the therminal that the resize is using upp to 100% of the cpu.

Sorry, I have not seen that issue before. I've followed the guide again yesterday with the latest DSM and can confirm that everything worked perfectly. Are you maybe using encrypted folders in DSM?

 

wich version do you use on ubunto?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just putt my 7th disk n and run the guide butt it just says "making dependency tree" it has been like this for a cuple of days :sad:. what to do?

it says in the top command in the therminal that the resize is using upp to 100% of the cpu.

Sorry, I have not seen that issue before. I've followed the guide again yesterday with the latest DSM and can confirm that everything worked perfectly. Are you maybe using encrypted folders in DSM?

 

wich version do you use on ubunto?

The latest and greatest. :smile:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it says in the top command in the therminal that the resize is using upp to 100% of the cpu.

Sorry, I have not seen that issue before. I've followed the guide again yesterday with the latest DSM and can confirm that everything worked perfectly. Are you maybe using encrypted folders in DSM?

 

wich version do you use on ubunto?

The latest and greatest. :smile:

 

okey. me to. but no success this time :sad: have you seen my other post? dose it mean anything to you? how dose your fstab look like?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Hi,

 

I would like to share my short story:

 

- nanoboot + DSM 5 + ESXi 5.5

- Adaptec 7805

- 3x3Tb WD Red in a RAID 5 + 1 disk as a hot spare

- whole LUN passed to DSM as RDM where used for a single volume

 

Decided to add 4th disk to RAID.

 

This took about 3 (three!) weeks for Adaptec to complete the rebuilding task after which ESXi recognized increased RDM disk size after refresh from the storage pane in the vsphere client, DSM recognized new disk size after reboot.

 

Obviously it was not possible to increase the volume size by DSM’s standard tools. I had an idea what to do, but made a quick search to confirm and found this wonderful blog: http://blog.azib.net/2013/12/how-i-upgr ... as-to.html with a very well structured comments.

 

Having nothing to add in substance, I would point out that one should check disks/volumes/groups names (for my disk in question I had, /volume2, /dev/vg1001/lv, /dev/md3, and /dev/sdb5 which became /dev/sdb3 after allocation of all free space) and would like to stress that sectors should be used in parted rather than smth else (fire “unit s” in parted). To have all sizes at hand, fire a second terminal window for “parted /dev/sdb unit s print free”

 

Actully this resizing in DSM does not take much time - i think less than an hour for me (apart from RAID rebuild at HW level) with a cofee break :smile:

 

BR

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Here we go again. Once again I added a drive and cannot expand the file system. Lo & Behold I have the original LINUX boot USB from the 1st time this happened. My question is: Do I need to go through step 2 - the install of mdadm or do I skip to step 3 and continue?

Never mind problem solved

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I am trying this for my N54L install (Real HW not VM)

 

I have followed the steps above and fail when I run sudo vgscan - Reading all physical volumes. No volume groups found !!

 

So I cannot continue with this How To.

 

Ubuntu has build the raid array. My Xpenology is setup as a bunch of disks under one volume help please.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Hi !

Experiencing the same problem in SHR2.

If I have understood all well there is 2 solutions to this problem :

 

- 1 - Make the steps under ubuntu

- 2 - Or Update to DSM 5.0-4493 Update 3

 

Right ?

The second solution can be done after trying to expand the volume ?

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
I confirm. Solution 2 works. This issue has been resolved in DSM 5.1-5022 Update 3.

 

Update your DSM, and Manage your Volume. It will be expanded.

 

Just wanted to say that I am having this problem and I am on DSM 5.1-5022 Update 3 so I don't think that is the case.

 

Added a 5th Western Digital Red 3TB and I get the option to expand, but it just fails and goes back to saying "You can expand size to about 11160".

 

I will be trying the guide in this article in the next couple days but figured I would post some screencaps if anyone cares to take a look.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7ofykw9k3f4eli/Volume.JPG?dl=0

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nmb5nezkxuj566r/DiskGroup.JPG?dl=0

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kv9pmfq7ze73ewa/HDD_SSD.JPG?dl=0

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/btnpehk4vr82wyi/log.JPG?dl=0

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...