Full recording of the second hard drive mounted on Feiniu NAS: lsblk drive, disk search, formatting, and directory sharing all in one go
the first 4TB drive of my Feiniu NAS at home was almost full, so I took advantage of the promotion to get another copy of the same model. I thought I'd just plug it in and be done, but there was no new storage in the storage space. I had to fiddle all night before I finally sorted it out. This article records the complete process of adding a tray, focusing on several points prone to failure.
Step 1: Confirm the system has recognized the
insert the new drive (note that the SATA cable must be fully inserted; I've suffered from loose data cables), log in to the SSH backend, and first check if the drive is still on:
lsblk
Output, find the new disk name. System drives are usually SDA or NVMe0N1, while newly added mechanical drives are usually set to SDB or SDC. Make sure the sizes match—a 4TB drive shows around 3.7TB, which is normal. The manufacturer uses 1000 base for capacity, and the system uses 1024, so it's not a refurbished drive.
if there are no new releases in LSBLK at all:
- replug and unplug the SATA cable and power cable, check both ends
- replace one SATA cable, one power connector
- SATA port. Command
dmesg | tail -20Check if the kernel is giving errors
tried it all but it still didn't work. Connect this drive to the computer and try to rule out the problem with the drive itself.
Step 2: Create a
in storageWeb side: Storage → Create Storage → Select Single Drive Basic Storage (choose this for single drives; if you want RAID, that's another story).
here's a pitfall: if your new drive isn't in the list, it's likely that the drive was originally used on Windows, with an NTFS partition table. Feiniu will recognize it but won't let you use it directly. Clear the old partition in SSH first:
sudo wipefs -a /dev/sdb
(Replace sdb with the actual drive letter you see in lsblk. Be careful not to type it wrong, as this command will erase all data on the drive)
then go back to the webpage and refresh, and the new drive will appear. Select it, format, and mount the path by default /vol1 or /vol2. Don't try to change it to a strange location.
Step 3: Create a shared directory
the storage space is created, you only have a "warehouse"; you also need to create a shared directory to put files there:
File Management → Shared Folders → New → Select the newly created storage space → Name (such as media2) → Permissions as needed.
SMB, NFS, and FTP protocols can be switched on demand in the "File Services," while SMB is enough for Windows and TV boxes at home.
Step 4: Transfer old data (optional)
want to move the movie from the first drive to a new drive to make space, don't use Windows drag-and-drop—just copy over the network, and it's slow and takes up your computer's bandwidth. In SSH, running rsync in the background:
rsync -avh --progress /vol1/media/ /vol2/media2/
breaks, don't worry. Add --append-verify and run again to keep passing. Hang dozens of gigatons of stuff before bed and finish early the next morning.
After copying df -h, confirm the usage on both sides matches, then manually check if a few large files can be played, and finally delete them. Take a second look before deleting—there's no medicine for regret.
a few high-frequency pitfalls
storage shows as "unhealthy"? First, check the SMART information and store → hard drive → health. Don't put important data on disks with remapping sector warnings; leave them unused as download disks.
dormant keeps failing? There are services that can't sleep when reading and writing on schedule. The common culprits are the logs of Docker containers and cache paths of download tools still on the old drive. docker ps check the mounting paths of each container and move them to the system disk.
drive letter changed causing mounting errors? Mount with labels or UUIDs is more reliable than names like sdb/sdc; drive letters change after unplugging or rebooting. blkid You can find the UUID of each disk.
4T The above disks only recognize 2TB on older devices? Older motherboard SATA controllers may not support GPT for large capacity, so you need to change ports or upgrade the BIOS. This has nothing to do with Feiniu; it's a hardware bottleneck.
Brief Experience in Capacity Planning
mechanical reserves, leave about 10% of the buffer and don't fill it to the brim; if it's too full, fragmentation increases and read/write speed drops noticeably. Download directory and treasured data are separated—if the download disk gets messy, just replace it, no worries; Try to write to the data disk as little as possible. For truly important things, start with the 3-2-1 principle: three copies, two media, one remote location—NAS is just one part of it.
