This article will go over how to expand your NX/ZX series Pool after purchasing a new JBOD or additional hard drives for your current system. We will go over how to create a test Pool to run some I/O testing to and once happy with the results we will go over how to expand your existing Pool to grow your storage.



Creating a Test Pool

  • After attaching the new JBOD or adding the Hard drives to the existing NX/ZX Series system you will need to login to your NX/ZX Series GUI. To do so type in its IP address in a web browser on a computer that is on the same network, contact SLI support if you are unsure of the default password.

  • You should now see your existing Pool and also the additional drives you just added under "Unassigned disks", if you do not see all the additional drives you added please click on the "Rescan" button in the upper right hand corner, this will rescan the system to pickup all the newly added hard drives.
  • Now we want to create a quick test pool and share to run some I/O through just to make sure everything is working before adding the new drives to the existing Pool, the reason is once the drives are added to the existing Pool and its expanded there is no way to go back without deleting the entire Pool and starting from scratch.
  • To create the Test Pool click on "Add zpool" in the upper right hand corner. This will start up the Zpool wizard.
  • Under "Add data group" choose all available disks, you will have to check mark each disk. Once all the disks are selected, click on the drop down next to "Select redundancy for group:" and choose Z-2 (RAID6) than click  on "+ Add group" than click "Next >".

  • After clicking "Next >", your selected drives should now be seen under "Data groups".

  • You can now just keep clicking "Next >" until you get to the "Configuration". Please name the Pool something like  "Test" and click "Next >".

  • Look over the "Summary" and if all looks fine click  "Add zpool" to create the Pool.

  • You should now see your "Test" pool on the "Storage" page along with your existing Pool.

  • Click the down arrow under the Pool to open up its menu's, once open click on "Shares". Once in "Shares" click on "+ Add dataset"

  • Please copy the following settings shown below and click "Apply" when done.

  • Click the Arrow next to the "test" share and than click on "Options" and "+ Add share".

  • Please copy the following screenshots for each menu in "+ Add share".

  • After the test share has been created, please go mount the share on a workstation you normally connect to and run some file copies to the new share and also attempt to open some files. Once you are happy and do not see any issue, you can delete the test share and move onto expanding your current Pool.
  • To delete the Test share please click on "Options" for the Test share and choose "X Delete zpool". You will be prompted to type "delete" as a safety precaution. Please make sure you are deleting your Test pool and not the existing Pool.


Expanding you existing Pool

This section will go over adding your new expansion drives to the existing NX/ZX Series Pool to grow the size.

  • Login to the NX/ZX Series GUI if you haven't already. Make sure you are seeing the correct number of new drives under "Unassigned disks", if you do not see them please click on the  "Rescan" button in the upper right hand corner.

  • Once you see the correct number of "Unassigned disks" click on the down arrorw under the Pool to open up its Menu's and click on "Disk Groups".

  • Click on the "+ Add group" drop down and choose "+ Add group".

  • Now this part will take a little thinking, we typically do not recommend putting all the drives into a new "Data Group" if there are more than 12x new drives being added. So if you are adding 12 new drives create one new "Data Group", 24 new drives create 2x 12 drive new "Data Group" and for 36 new drive make 2x 18 drives "Data Group".
  • Choose the drives you wish to add, make sure "Z-2" is chosen for "Select redundancy for group", click "+ Add group" and hit "Apply".

  • You should be greeted with a prompt to "Add data group". This prompt is just making sure you want to continue as once the drives are added they cannot be reverted without deleting the entire Pool and all data on it. Type "add" and click "add" once you are ready.

  • You Pool should now have the new drives added and should reflect the additional storage space you just added, this can be seen under "Status" for the Pool you just expanded.