3-in-1 docking station (EM537ET) disk limitation

[Jens Scheffler]

I tried to attach a bigger disk (1TB) to the 3-in-1 NAS docking station but I'm not able to claim the full disk size as new pool. It seems that there is a limitation regarding disk size and number of pools.

The following message appears:
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Not enough memory to mount one or more pools

One or more pools could not be mounted due to a lack of free memory. Each system pool requires certain amount of memory to be mounted and operational. The amount of memory used by pools depends on a number of pools defined as well as pools' sizes. When memory resources are nearly exhausted, the system will try to stay alive by refusing to to mount pools with memory requirements that cannot be met at the time. This may happen both - at the boot time and during normal operation when configuration changes are being made Here is a few points to consider: - having too many small pools is not beneficial as it requires more memory and wastes disk space. Reducing the number of pools by merging them together may be a solution. changes to system configuration. - backup and remove unused pools - memory upgrade might be an option for a long term solution !!!! DO BACKUP YOUR DATA BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY CONFIGURATION CHANGES !!!!
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Is there a way to get this fixed?
What is the actual limitation?

I could not find any limitation in the documentation so I'm very sad now - I'd like to have my full disk used.

It seems that the box is only capable of ~600GB disk pools.

[Tjay]

Hi,
first off all, how you have restored the firmware to new harddrive ? I heard that this can be done with 'nasload', but it didnt work for me.

Regarding your question, yes, there is a max hdd size, it is based on the size of ram on board. So if you double the ram size ( what of course is not so easy, but possible ), you will be able to adress 1TB.


regards

tjay

[Jens Scheffler]

Hi Tray,

thanks for the response.

Is there any documentation available how to upgrade the memory on the system board? Or is there any chance to tune kernel parameters to lower memory consumption? As there is a big disk in the system then I also could think of enabling a swap space... ;-)

I copied the original 160G disk using DD to the new hard drive. this seems to work out fine. I just plugged the drive into a USB cradle and attached it to my laptop directly.
Is there any "official" tool available? I could not find any reference. What is "nasload"?

Thanks & Best Regards,
Jens

[Tjay]

Hi,

well, documentation and source code is on the original cd ( nasoc_rel_2.0_rc15_hpk2.tar.gz ).

As you can see the board is based on BroadcomNAS, there are many similar NAS products, most of them based on same chip and same disign, only firmware customized.
Additional memory can be only soldered :(
Kernel params, hmm, thats a good question.

Something about nasload can be found here, http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault/

Unfortunatelly nasload didnt worked for me, maybe because of my switched network, have no hubs here :)

Telenet seems to be compiled in the firmware, is set to disabled ( cfenas.trx )

I have already patched my firmware to enable telnet, but was not able to upload it ( version is same, will be not replaced ).

Normally new/any firmware can be uploaded with nasload tool to 'broken' NAS 3-in-1, but possible that HP habe blocked something.

[Alvi · Accepted solution]

Yes, there is a limitation of about 650Gb counting all connected drives (incl. USB). I upgraded the HDD in my 3-in-1 to 500Gb and it worked fine. You can find NASload by googlinf or at the link http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault/ as mentioned already.
Before upgrading you need to "zero" first Ð»Ð¸Ð½ÐµÑ Ñ fo drive with dd command in any unix (I downloaded Knoppix LiveCD and it takes me about 10 mins and was quite simple)
On yout 1TB drive you can just create pool of 600-650b and use it safely.

You can upgrade memory only by physiclly replacing RAM modules. But I'm not sure that firmware will use the bigger memory - HP could hard-code the amount of memory in the firmware.

[FishCop]

I installed a 1TB HD in my 3in1. The whole HD cannot be mounted for me this works out. I have three pools each about 320Gb to backup external 2,5" 320GB drives. When I want to backup a drive I only mount the one I need for the backup and leave the others unmounted. You can do this by encrypting the drives. Then the drives stay unmounted after unplugging the power until you enter the password for the specific pool you want to mount. This solution is not perfect but makes it possible to use the whole HD you have to create the pools in several runs because they stay mounted after generating them the first time and like the others said the limit is about 650GB of mounted pools. When someone knows more about soldering more memory to the board please let me know i am interested in this option!!

[FishCop]

by the way: to use nasload you need nasunpack as well in the same folder and the dockingstation and the computer you run nasload on have to be in the same IP adress range e.g. NAS: 192.168.1.2 and PC: 192.168.1.5 the command is:

nasload /a /u username /p password /f hpnas_split.nas

the file hpnas_split.nas, nasload.exe and nasunpack.exe have to be in the same folder...the update takes about 1-2 minutes and then anouter 2 minutes for the NAS to reboot...

[Verheijke]

Hi everybody, please help, my 3-in-1 NAS has malfunctioned despite of the (only) 160GB external usb disk attached. Statement is "not enough memory to mount pool." I would have cleared the disks but all my pictures films (of the kids not avatar) are on there.
So I do not want to loose any data.
please assist.
cheers,
Mark