Pegasus32 R4 - Upgrade Hard Drives

  • 121 Views
  • Last Post 4 days ago
Mike Lauer posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi, 

 

Looking for some guidance on how to replace my hard drives in the Pegasus32 R4. I previously had a couple drobo and could pretty easily figure out how to replace drives. I recently moved to Pegasus in the last few years, and of course have run out of available space. 

 

This link on the main page makes it seem like there's just a couple of drives that will work, Promise SATA Hard Drive Compatability. 

 

Going on microcenter, I'm looking at updating the 4 hard drives from their current 4tb to 10tb each, I read in other posts all the hard drives need to be the same size so I plan on getting 4. 

How do you know which drives to get that'll work? Toshiba N300 10TB 7200 RPM SATA III 6Gb/s 3.5" Internal CMR NAS Hard Drive - Mfr Part#: HDWG71AXZSTA - For example, this drive isn't on the list but the brand and sizing looks right. 

 

Appreciate any pointers on how to move forward finding compatable drives, and especially how to perform the drive swap, & update process. 

Order By: Standard | Latest | Votes
Jonathan Wills posted this 4 weeks ago

Hi,

Congrats on the upgrade to the Pegasus32 R4—definitely a step up from Drobo. You're right that the drive compatibility list from Promise is pretty limited, but in practice, many standard NAS-class SATA drives work fine, even if not officially listed.

1. Compatible Drives

Promise only officially certifies certain drives, but users often have success with similar models not on the list. The Toshiba N300 10TB (HDWG71AXZSTA) you're considering is a good NAS-grade CMR drive with 7200 RPM and SATA III, which checks the right boxes for performance and reliability.

While it’s not on the Promise list, it should work as long as:

  • It’s a 3.5” SATA drive (not SMR—CMR only, which the N300 is)

  • All drives match in capacity and model for RAID rebuild stability

2. Replacing Drives (Step-by-Step)

If you’re upgrading drives without losing data:

  1. Back up everything first. Even if you’re using RAID, this is essential.

  2. Replace one drive at a time, allowing the RAID to rebuild after each swap:

    • Power down the Pegasus (to be safe—although hot-swap may work, Promise often recommends cold-swap).

    • Replace the first drive with a new 10TB.

    • Boot up, let the RAID rebuild completely (can take hours).

    • Repeat for the next drive.

  3. Once all 4 drives are in and the final rebuild is done, you can expand the RAID volume via Promise Utility (RAID reconfiguration or expansion depending on your RAID level).

3. Tips

  • Use the Promise Utility to monitor rebuilds and manage the array.

  • Make sure your firmware is up to date before doing the upgrade.

  • RAID 5/6 will allow for this one-by-one drive swap and expansion, but if you're using RAID 0, this won’t work—you’ll need to reinitialize the whole array.

 

Let me know your RAID configuration and I can guide you further.

  • Liked by
  • Mike Lauer
Mike Lauer posted this 4 weeks ago

Under Controls, Disk Arrays, Logical Drive, I see one item with "RAID 5", "12 TB" and Status OK. 

So if I'm understanding correctly, the steps are really:

1. Backup everything

2. Turn off Pegasus

3. Replace the first drive with the fresh hard drive

4. Turn on Pegaus

5. Open Promise Utility and wait for RAID to rebuild (hours) 

6. Repeat the steps (switch off, replace second drive, turn on, open promise utility, wait for RAID to rebuild)

7. Repeat for last two bays

8. Open Promise Utility, RAID Configuration 

Where do you go next to expand the RAID Reconfiguration? 

R P posted this 3 weeks ago

Hi Mike,

You can rebuild to larger drives and expand the LUN to use the extra space. But getting macOS to use that space is another issue.

This Knowledge Base article shows the process.

This is not a process for someone unfamilar with the terminal and macOS terminal tools. Apple has warnings at a few steps so use at your own risk.

But if you can follow the first step mentioned above, backing up your data, then you don't need to do any of this. Instead just install all of the larger drives, use the Wizard to create a new Volume and copy your files back in.

The only reason for the rebuild process is that you don't have the ability to backup the data, so you need increase the storage space with the data still on the drives.

A few notes.

1. Auto rebuilds will only start if you hot-plug an unconfigured drive or if you have a hot spare.

2. Most new drives arrive as passthru drives, you will have to use the Promise Utility to remove the Passthru state before a rebuild can be started.

3. The easiest way to start a rebuild is to remove the passthru state then make the drive a spare. An auto-rebuild should start.

Mike Lauer posted this 2 weeks ago

Ok, so I won't do the whole slow drive replacement if Mac isn't going to be able to figure out the sizing easily. I'd be totally fine testing out that code/terminal approach but since this is all my photos from the last 25 years don't feel like risking it.

I'll just do a backup of all my data onto my Lacie, go get some larger drives of the same exact size, switch off the Pegasus, replace all the drives, boot it back up, format the new Pegasus using Promise Utility and copy it all back in. 

 

Thanks for everyone's help letting me know this was the best approach to sizing up the Pegasus 32 R4

 

R P posted this 1 weeks ago

Hi Mike,

Please note that for Sequoia there is a newer and slightly simpler process,

No reboots needed, all you need to do is find which /dev/disk the Pegasus Volume is and there are 2 terminal commands to run.

Mike Lauer posted this 5 days ago

So in case anyone else comes here, this is what I ended up doing for now until I can afford the larger hard drives - they're very pricy. 

I'm scavenging my old drobo unit 6tb drives which I thankfully have. 

I powered off the pegasus, and removed each drive, labelled which bay they were in, removed their 4 mounting screws, and replaced them one by one with the new 6tb drives. 

I powered the unit on, and mac os x gave me a bunch of "initialize errors," which opened disk utility. 

Opened Pegaus/Promise utility, and clicked controls, clicked the lock button to unlock the drives, and then clicked "passthru drive" where all 4 drives were. I removed them using the trash icon, typing "confirm" for each one. When it was done, they appeared under "unconfigured." 

At this point, I was able to click this new tab, click the wizard, and then used "smart wizard" to configure a new RAID 5. 

I see 18tb, with 6tb in reserve, giving me an 18tb drive. 

The process kicked off to build RAID 5, and now it's slowly building the disk array. 

 

I'm referencing page 56 regarding this topic, I had to make a few assumptions on what to do since this wasn't super clear, and I'm no expert at this type of thing:

Creating a Disk Array and Logical Drive with the Wizard

https://www.promise.com/media_bank/Download%20Bank/Utility/Pegasus%20User%20Manual%20(English)%20.pdf Creating a Disk Array and Logical Drive with the Wizard

R P posted this 4 days ago

Hi Mike,

The process you followed is perfect, nice job.

Regarding the sync (the firmware is creating the parity stripe).

  • You can use the Pegasus while it's syncing, but it will be slower.
  • If your Mac is set to sleep when not being used, the sync will stop when the mac sleeps. It's a good idea to stop the mac from sleeping. The terminal command 'caffeinate' will prevent the mac from sleeping and you won't have to use the settings app.

 

Search
Categories
Close