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Forum Discussion
jokee
Nov 14, 2017Aspirant
questions about readynas
so i was wondering if i could start using readynas with already filled disk (now i have 2x4tb drives) or i would need to backup data and format them, and also if it was possible to add a 6tb or 8tb d...
jokee
Nov 15, 2017Aspirant
sorry i wasnt clear, i wanted to use readynas os on a existing machine (i currently have linux os without any redundancy)
so basically i should buy 2 4tb hdds to backup my data, then i format the others and just add the backup drives without needing to format them
is it right?
Sandshark
Nov 15, 2017Sensei - Experienced User
I'm still not completely clear what you want to do. Any drives you intend to use in a ReadyNAS must be formatted by the ReadyNAS. They have OS, swap, and data partitions; which your drives from another machine are not going to have.
If you are very comfortable with Linux, it may be possible to put drives from another Linux machine into a ReadyNAS with enough free slots and mount them in order to copy data off to the ReadyNAS native-formatted drives. Then, after the data is copied, you could have the NAS re-format the drives and add them to your array.
You should certainly make sure your backup is intact before you do that. How much faster that would be than using a USB3 backup, I can't say. It's certainly a lot more effort.
- jokeeNov 15, 2017Aspirant
wait wait from what i understood readynas 6 was an os free to use (on a existing machine) that didnt require to format to expand storage since it used flex raid technologies, from what im reading now its more like unraid
- StephenBNov 16, 2017Guru - Experienced User
jokee wrote:
wait wait from what i understood readynas 6 was an os free to use (on a existing machine)
OS6 only runs on ReadyNAS hardware, it is not a general application for linux.
XRAID is layered on top of mdadm and btrfs. There are one or two features on top of them (bit rot recovery, ReadyDR backup), but the rest is just mdadm and btrfs.
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