False Advertising

[customer001]

Armbianmonitor:

http://dpaste.com/2MS85KR

Can you people explain to me how you advertise on almost every page 48+TB storage fully knowing there is a 16TB limitation on all filesystems thanks to limitations on 32bit? I will not use whatever MERGEFS is.

How exactly do you achieve 48TB storage as I currently have 4x6TB disks that I CANNOT USE.

 

If you can't I want a refund.

[lanefu]

I'm sorry you're disappointed.  That's a pretty harsh accusation.   I'd rather you reach out to Kobol directly than to post this as a bug in the Armbian forum.   Fortunately Kobol is pretty responsive, and I'm sure they'll reach out to you.

 

I'm sure you could think some alternate strategies for managing your data including LVM rather than a flat filesystem.

[customer001]

There is no accusation. Just the basic fact that a 32bit OS cannot process over 16TB of storage. LVM will not help in this case. Unless users are expected to use all four disks as separate drives without RAID there is no realistic way to use this "nas" solution. Noone will use a "NAS" without RAID. Its 2019 FFS what user will raid modern disks and use LESS than 16TB? There is ZERO use for this. If there was 500pt blinking RED text on the pages that lead to a purchase saying CANNOT EXCEED 16TB people would be made aware of these limitations. I would never have purchased this had I known this. I have purchased 4x6TB drives that I have to use raid6 on resulting in ~10TB instead of what I wanted with raid5 resulting in ~16TB. I have gone from my current old NAS capacity of 8TB to 10TB after purchasing this "NAS" + Disks! 24TB down to 10! Does that seem like a huge waste of money to you? It does to me

[Tido]

3 hours ago, customer001 said:

Just the basic fact that a 32bit OS cannot process over 16TB of storage.

did u already read here ?

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/6033-helios4-support/?do=findComment&comment=65792

 

// sent from mobile phone //

 

[Igor]

6 hours ago, customer001 said:

Its 2019

Many cheap NAS solutions uses virtually the same hardware and face the same limitation.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Compatibility_Peripherals/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have

 

You need to invest more to get rid of this.

 

6 hours ago, customer001 said:

Noone will use a "NAS" without RAID

My NAS has no RAID. System is on SD card, data is rsynced to another hardware. If HDD died, its replaced and rsynced from backup. Speeding up with RAID0? Nonsense.

[customer001]

Quote

Many cheap NAS solutions uses virtually the same hardware and face the same limitation.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Compatibility_Peripherals/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have

Yes and they indicate this limitation quite clearly. 64bit NAS are quite common now as a result.

 

Quote

You need to invest more to get rid of this.

 

Had their been PROPER labeling of this issue on the product page vs the GLEAMING 48TB claims BS I'd have invested MORE on a NAS thats actually useful.

 

Quote

My NAS has no RAID. System is on SD card, data is rsynced to another hardware. If HDD died, its replaced and rsynced from backup. Speeding up with RAID0? Nonsense.

 

I'm quite sure noone cares how some will use NAS for non NAS purposes. If you say NAS the vast majority of people think RAID and many disks. RAID as well as many disks QUICKLY RUNS INTO THE 16TB LIMITATION.

 

I cannot believe how little care is given about this. Hiding this limitation on a forum where people have already been duped and then claiming "hey its there somewhere so its cool" is typical malicious garbage. You know damned well the pages advertising this "nas" has NO mention of it while it definitely claims 48+TB storage! Only for a nice surprise to those who purchase it looking to get anything higher than 16TB.

 

I've been rebuilding and copying data for 4 days now and I still have 18HOURS TO GO. And thats just because of double parity on raid6. Which I dont even want but have to make due with thanks to malicious marketing. Its irresponsible to advertise 48+TB on your "nas" while KNOWING ITS LIMITED TO 16TB. Who the hell would kickstart a NAS TODAY THAT IS LIMITED TO 16TB STORAGE? Answer: JUST LIE ABOUT ITS STORAGE AND NOT FIND OUT! GOOD JOB MARKETING.

 

 

[lanefu]

14 minutes ago, customer001 said:

Had their been PROPER labeling of this issue on the product page vs the GLEAMING 48TB claims BS I'd have invested MORE on a NAS thats actually useful.

 

If you're in the states and interested in selling your Helios4, DM me.

[Heisath]

RAID on NAS is actually pretty useless for most usecases (except enterprise). 

I mean, RAID only protects you from harddrive failures. But it does nothing against, accidential deletion or version keeping. So maybe just use like 4 partitions. 2 for your data and then the other 2 for backups - use rsync or even rdiff-backup to get nice small differential backups. This gives you security if a disk fails, and you can even recover accidentally lost data. Also your harddrives won't degrade as fast, because essentially only half of them is running (the other ones only turn on 1 per day (or when ever) to sync. This also fixes the RAID issue where multiple drives die because they are used exactly the same.

The only downsides are:

- no continous backup (ie you will lose some hours/days or how often you do a backup)

- some downtime when a drive fails (vs hotswap with raid).

 

Apart from that, Helios4 team does not claim, that it is possible to use all 48TB as one big raid (if it does, please provide a link for me). It only says that it is possible to connect up to 48TB (raw!) to the nas device. Which should be absolutely possible.

 

Also, if you aren't satisfied with your helios, just use their contact and maybe ask for a refund? This thread seems a bit immature.

[customer001]

Your suggested workaround is not good enough. So I wont bother explaining why your completely round-about nonsense side stepping the actual issue is in fact idiotic.

 

You want a LINK? Go to the website and open your eyes. Here is a sample: https://imgur.com/iBWHOlL

 

If you sell NAS and says 48+TB storage it IMPLIES 48+TB storage. Who will read that and say "Wow 48+TB as 12TB individual disks! Can't wait to use this as a NAS solution!"? Your attempt to invalidate common sense with technical side stepping is bullshit. Because your doctor didn't EXPLICITLY say he or she wouldnt leave a spoon inside your anus after an operation doesn't mean its fair to find one there afterwards you tool. There are certain common sense assumptions that are perfectly legitimate in various contexts.

 

Anyway I have nothing more to add.

 

 

[lanefu]

8 minutes ago, customer001 said:

Anyway I have nothing more to add.

 

Perfect. Locking thread.

[gprovost]

Before this thread get close I wanted to have a chance to reply.

 

@customer001 As I replied you in private, I think you need to understand that the limitation you are facing is not on the array size but on the partition size... and that nothing stop you to create more than one partition / volume on the same array, and that's actually a common practice.

 

So in your case, it seems you created a RAID5 (not very recommended) with 4x 6TB disk, it means an array of 18TB. So you will have to create more than one partition since a single partition (or LVM logical volume) on 32bit system can only be max 16TB. Then up to you, how you want to split the total space. Could be 2x partitions of 9TB each. Or could be one partition of 14TB for not sensitive information and one encrypted partition of 4TB for more sensitive info.

 

On 8/18/2019 at 8:22 PM, customer001 said:

I cannot believe how little care is given about this. Hiding this limitation on a forum where people have already been duped and then claiming "hey its there somewhere so its cool" is typical malicious garbage. You know damned well the pages advertising this "nas" has NO mention of it while it definitely claims 48+TB storage! Only for a nice surprise to those who purchase it looking to get anything higher than 16TB.

 

There is nothing malicious in our marketing, since yes you can effectively connect 4x 12TB HDD which give you 48TB of raw data storage. Then all depends on how you choose to configure your storage.

NAS = Network Attached Storage, doesn't mean RAID. So someone could choose to expose individually each disk without creating any array or redundancy / parity, therefore enjoying a total storage space of around 48TB.

 

On our wiki, in the mdadm and OMV instruction, we mentioned that you need to create more than one partition if your array size > 16TB

 

 

But I do agree with you we could have mentioned in our detailed specs that Max single volume size is 16TB. I will add this in the specs table on our wiki to avoid future confusion.

 

I'm sorry that you are disappointed by the product because you assumed you could create a single huge partition superior of 16TB. It never been our intention to hide stuff, quite the opposite since we've always been very transparent about the project and everything happening around it.

 

 

 

[customer001]

I think "assuming you could make one huge partition" is quite normal in the context of NAS after 2005. Is a partition over 16TB "huge" in your mind? Have you EVER used RAID in an office before in your life? Do you know how much storage today's SINGLE drives can support now? Are you from the past?

 

Quote

But I do agree with you we could have mentioned in our detailed specs that Max single volume size is 16TB. I will add this in the specs table on our wiki to avoid future confusion.

Great put that on every page where you advertise 48TB storage.

 

Like I said before there is no person who thinks of a NAS claiming 48TB of storage who also expects to create multiple 32bit size limitation friendly partitions. You DO realize we no longer use FAT16 right? This IoT toy device is so useless you cannot even use it for RAID where the result is >16TB because it CANNOT HANDLE A SINGLE VOLUME OVER 16TB. You will always hit this limitation if you use disks over 4TB in size. Think about that. This device can support RAID only if you limit your individual drive sizes to 4TB. Are you aware of the sizes of today's individual drives? My 4 year old PHONE has a 64bit processor and supports >16TB drives. Every 64bit NAS will support >16TB partitions and I think its ridiculous that you're claiming that RAID5 is "not very recommended". RAID5 is very common especially for a NAS with only 4 disks. I'm really not interested in having to explain typical NAS/RAID usage after the year 1990 again, but the TL;DR is I'm very unhappy with this helios4 advertising 48TB while knowing full well the limitations of 32bit and pretending common RAID levels are bad.

 

Having a faulty power supply really drives the point home that I wasted my money. Next time I will be willing to shell out more dough for a synology which does indeed have 64bit support. Like all contemporary computing devices. This is a device that was SUPPOSED to replace another system whose purpose was NAS/NFS. I've LOST functionality with this purchase and for the moment will have to make due.

[gprovost]

@customer001 I take note that you are unfortunately very disappointed by Helios4 and will message you directly the info to send it back to us and get refund.

 

I guess that's the best solution (for both of us), this way we can end this conversation in a civilize manner.

 

@lanefu I imagine now you can close the thread ;-)

 

[customer001]

Unfortunately for me I've gone all in. I've removed the previous device and I don't have so much storage lying around that I can spend another 24+hours transferring my data off to somewhere only to copy it back to another solution. Please replace the power supply and I will make due. Lesson learned on my part.