Hi all, I need to upgrade my NAS changing the actually 2x4Tb disks with 2x6Tb or more.For changing disk can I change one drive at a time and wait for the realignment/rebuild of system? ThanksSemola

Of corse. The fan has become noisy as a result of the numerous times that I have cleaned it from dust.I will look for a fan with equal revolutions and, if possible, greater CFM Thanks

RN102 - Disk Upgrade | NETGEAR Communities

15 Replies

Marc_V
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Apr 21, 2020
semola1

You are correct you have to replace the drive one at a time and wait for the resync to complete before adding the other one.

You can also do hotswap, you don't need to turn off the NAS when replacing the drive.
StephenB
Guru
Apr 21, 2020
semola1 wrote:

I need to upgrade my NAS changing the actually 2x4Tb disks with 2x6Tb or more.

For changing disk can I change one drive at a time and wait for the realignment/rebuild of system?

You do change one at a time (hot-swapping them) as Marc_V recommends. Expansion happens after you replace the second disk.

You should also make a backup first - the process requires reading or writing each sector of each drive. If there are disk errors, there can be data loss.

I do recommend NAS-purposed drives. But I also suggest going with at least 8 TB. WD recently disclosed that they are using SMR technology in the newest 2-6 TB Reds, which isn't the best option for NAS. Seagate doesn't seem to be doing that in their Ironwolf drives, but they have done it in some Barracudas (and it's not that easy to tell for sure). The larger sizes use CMR, which is better suited for RAID.
- semola1
  Tutor
  Apr 21, 2020
  Hi Stefan,
  I am think to purchase a 10Tb disk (Western Digital WD100EFAX).
  
  I don't have enough space to perform a security backup of the disks. But, if I remove one of them, won't I already have a valid backup?
  If i have any problem, I can read the disc directly from Windows or Linux and copy the data to the new discs.
  What do you think about it? Is it too risky?
  
  At this moment the 2 disks are perfectly aligned and I have no reports from the NAS
  
  Thanks
  Semola
  - Sandshark
    Sensei
    Apr 21, 2020
    If you remove one drive of four, it will contain 1/3 of the minimum information required to reconstruct your files. Once the re-sync with another drive starts, the removed one will be out of sync with the remaining ones, so you also can't put it back in to restore the volume's health. So, no, you won't have a backup because RAID is not really backup.
    
    There are lots of things that can cause a total data loss. They don't happen often, but they can happen and this forum has lots of posts from users who did lose everyting to an unusual event. So if there is anything on your NAS that cannot be replaced and is valuable to you, you need backup whether you are upgrading drives or not. It's especially important during drive replacement because the volume is most at risk while one drive is syncing (one other drive failure, and all is lost) and because of the extra activity it requires of the drives, potentially being the straw that broke the camel's back on another drive close to failure.
    
    I recommend you only replace two drives now unless you have a sudden need for a lot more space or are seeing errors on your existing drives. There is no reason to put more wear on two more whose space is not currently needed. Plus, the price will likely drop before you need another and you space out the amount of time the drives have on them, reducing the chance of two drives faling nearly simultaneously (which is one of the mechanisms for losing all your data).
semola1
Tutor
Feb 10, 2025
Hi All,
I need to replace again my readyNas disks, because I have reached the maximum capacity of my current 10Tb drives.
I wanted to ask you if, given that the RN102 box in my possession (updated to the latest firmware version) is old, I might have problems mounting 2 18Tb disks (Western digital WD181) that I found on offer.

Thanks a lot for all.
Semola