Disk size and hotswap backup

1. Hot swap in NOT a good idea. If you have a 2 disk array (X-Raid, X-Raid2 or Raid 1) it is an array of two disks, not one disk that is mirrored to another periodically. In addition, the SATA disk design was never designed to be swapped in and out as the connectors are actually rather fragile (I have broken 2, although not in an NAS). Even handling a disk can cause damage if you have a stick build up on your body. They are not like tapes or DVD's where all the electronics and connections stay in place and only the media is swapped.

2. An offsite backup is an excellent idea, but it should be done with drives made for that purpose with a USB or eSATA connections. I have a USB small drive that I rotate in my SD box for the purpose of emergency backup of critical/important information. For routine backups, my NAS1 backs up to my NAS2.

3. All X-86 (Intel processors) based ReadyNAS units support drives with a capacity of > 2TB. The new ARM (Marvell) based NV+ v2 and Duo v2 do as well. The older Sparc based NV+ v1 and Duo v1 will not support any drives larger than 2TB.

4. Compatible drives can be found in the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL).