I have just set up a ReadyNas 104 with two 3TB Hard Drives, when watching video guides online I have noticed other users have the total of all disk storage showing up in admin panel eg 6TB or just under. I however only have 2.72TB however both drives are registered and show up as healthy I can click on both to see that they are connected. I haven't yet transfered data over to NAS as I want it all working before. Will this NAS system automatically create duplicates across both drives or do I have to do further backups on other drives?Hope this makes sense and hope someone out there can help.

DanEv wrote: I have just set up a ReadyNas 104 with two 3TB Hard Drives, when watching video guides online I have noticed other users have the total of all disk storage showing up in admin panel eg 6TB or just under. I however only have 2.72TB however both drives are registered and show up as healthy I can click on both to see that they are connected. I haven't yet transfered data over to NAS as I want it all working before. Will this NAS system automatically create duplicates across both drives... I am thinking you are running XRAID. With two disks, XRAID uses RAID-1 (disk mirroring). So there is automatic redundancy (everything is written twice, once to each disk). The NAS admin page is displaying TiB, not TB. 1 TB = 1000*1000*1000*1000. 1 TiB=1024*1024*1024*1024. 2.72 TiB is about the same as 3 TB. So your set up is normal. If you were to add another 3 TB drive, XRAID will switch you to RAID-5 (parity blocks). Storage will increase to 6 TB (~5.4 TiB). You still have single-disk redundancy, but the way that works is more complicated. Add a 4th 3 TB drive, and the storage increases to 9 TB (still RAID-5). DanEv wrote: ... or do I have to do further backups on other drives? Many people assume that using RAID means they don't need backups. That is a big mistake, and there are plenty of posts here from people who learned that lesson the hard way. So you should put a backup plan in place for the NAS. One way is to get an external USB 3.0 drive, and use that to back up the NAS. The Web UI has a backup facility you can use. A UPS is also a good idea. In many cases the data loss began with an unexpected power cut.

You should stick with this RAID setup. If you need more space you can add an additional disk to the 104 and the volume will expand.I would use the NAS as primary storage and backup the external disks.You are accessing both disks already. If a disk fails the NAS should continue running with just the other disk(s).

DanEv wrote: When I purchased the NAS system I thought I would end up with 6TB of space that I could copy data from my external to so I could back it up the NAS and still operate off the externals. However now I only have 3TB which will not be enough for all my data! Looks like I am off to by another HD to add will I need to get 1 or 2 drives and can I go for drives that are larger like 2 x 6TB? Adding one more 3 TB drive (or larger) will bring you up to a 6 TB volume. If you install a one larger drive, then the extra space (over 3 TB) can't be used until you install a second one. Adding 2 6 TB drives will bring you up to a 12 TB volume size. The general rule: sum the drives, and subtract the largest.

Hello DanEv, This may also help calculating the approximate volume size you get from combined disks in a RAID (XRAID and Traditional/FlexRAID): http://rdconfigurator.netgear.com/raid/index.html OS partition, swap partition, etc are not deducted yet. Regards,

Hello DanEv, You are most welcome! Please feel free to post any suggestions, tips, questions or anything about your NAS that you feel like sharing. Regards,

Total Volume not being displayed in ReadyNas104

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StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Sep 22, 2015
DanEv wrote:

I have just set up a ReadyNas 104 with two 3TB Hard Drives, when watching video guides online I have noticed other users have the total of all disk storage showing up in admin panel eg 6TB or just under. I however only have 2.72TB however both drives are registered and show up as healthy I can click on both to see that they are connected. I haven't yet transfered data over to NAS as I want it all working before. Will this NAS system automatically create duplicates across both drives...

I am thinking you are running XRAID. With two disks, XRAID uses RAID-1 (disk mirroring). So there is automatic redundancy (everything is written twice, once to each disk). The NAS admin page is displaying TiB, not TB. 1 TB = 1000*1000*1000*1000. 1 TiB=1024*1024*1024*1024. 2.72 TiB is about the same as 3 TB.

So your set up is normal.

If you were to add another 3 TB drive, XRAID will switch you to RAID-5 (parity blocks). Storage will increase to 6 TB (~5.4 TiB). You still have single-disk redundancy, but the way that works is more complicated.

Add a 4th 3 TB drive, and the storage increases to 9 TB (still RAID-5).

DanEv wrote:

... or do I have to do further backups on other drives?

Many people assume that using RAID means they don't need backups. That is a big mistake, and there are plenty of posts here from people who learned that lesson the hard way. So you should put a backup plan in place for the NAS. One way is to get an external USB 3.0 drive, and use that to back up the NAS. The Web UI has a backup facility you can use. A UPS is also a good idea. In many cases the data loss began with an unexpected power cut.
- DanEv
  Aspirant
  Sep 22, 2015
  Thanks for your help! Would I be better changing the Raid set up or is that the best for my setup. I have external drives that I run from my PC. It is these I am looking to backup onto the NAS olr should I run it the other way, operate from the Nas and Backup to the external?
  
  How do I access the second drive if data is being mirrored or do I only access that only if I need to retrieve it due to failure!
  
  Sorry new to NAS was told this would be the best set up as I have had an external drive crash however thought the process was more straight forward than what it has been! Told I just had to plug the drives in and start copying data over and it would work itself out!
  
  Thanks again for your response
  - mdgm-ntgr
    NETGEAR Employee Retired
    Sep 22, 2015
    You should stick with this RAID setup. If you need more space you can add an additional disk to the 104 and the volume will expand.
    
    I would use the NAS as primary storage and backup the external disks.
    
    You are accessing both disks already. If a disk fails the NAS should continue running with just the other disk(s).

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Total Volume not being displayed in ReadyNas104

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