Pegasus32 R4 - Upgrade Hard Drives

  • 28 Views
  • Last Post 3 hours ago
Mike Lauer posted this 2 days 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 yesterday

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 yesterday

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 hours 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.

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.

Search
Categories
Close