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Forum Discussion
Where else can HDDs be used?
I've had my readynas for about a year now and am thinking about upgrading to a newer one. I've currently got 2 full 4TB HDDs in my readynas104 and I would like to know how these can be used elsewhere...
kurokabau wrote:
I've had my readynas for about a year now and am thinking about upgrading to a newer one. I've currently got 2 full 4TB HDDs in my readynas104 and I would like to know how these can be used elsewhere.
You could migrate them to another ReadyNAS running ReadyNAS OS 6. If your volume is redundant; or if instead of using a single volume you have a separate volume for each disk; then you could even move to a 2-bay if you wanted.
I would probably suggest considering the RN204, RN214, RN314, RN316 or RN516 depending on what your needs are.
It would be advisable to uninstall the apps on the system before moving the disks across.
kurokabau wrote:
And also, can I read readynas formated drives on a window computer just by plugging them in? Or would these HDDs need to be in a readynas to be read unless i reformated them?
We use md raid with BTRFS on top. You'd need 3rd party software that can work with that or you could use free tools on an ordinary x86 Linux machine. I would backup your data first (if your NAS is still working fine) before trying either of these.
Sorry for the late reply. Thank-you for your response.
I'm glad upgrading is so easy. I believe my volume is redundant. (All HDDs mapped to the same place?). So would it be as easy as literally taking out the HDDs and placing them into a newer model?
Also good to hear that software can read them. I was getting worried that if my readynas failed I'd lose all my data. I wasn't totally sure how the backup drive works in readynas. I currently have 2x 4TB HDDs and one of them is purely a back up I believe (default readynas settings) But i don't understand how if I add 2 more 4 TB HDDs, that a single 4TB HDD can back up 3 other 4 TB HDDs.
kurokabau wrote:
Also good to hear that software can read them. I was getting worried that if my readynas failed I'd lose all my data. I wasn't totally sure how the backup drive works in readynas. I currently have 2x 4TB HDDs and one of them is purely a back up I believe (default readynas settings)
It is not really a "backup drive" - and in fact you really should have an independent backup of the NAS data.
Technically what you have now is a RAID-1 array, where the two drives are mirrored. If a disk fails, then the second one still allows your data to be read/written. But there are other failure modes (NAS hardware or software, user error, power spikes, etc) that can still result in data loss.
kurokabau wrote:
But i don't understand how if I add 2 more 4 TB HDDs, that a single 4TB HDD can back up 3 other 4 TB HDDs.
One option is to just accept it as "raid magic".
All the data is available when one disk fails. None of it is available if two or more disks fail. So there is no single disk that is backing up the other three.
Technically its a math trick. Imagine 3 data elements (a, b, c). You can sum them to p=a+b+c. Save each of the four on different disks. If any disk is missing, you can reconstuct the lost data element from the other three.
- a=p-b-c
- b=p-a-c
- c=p-a-b
- p=a+b+c
That's not exactly how its done, but it is the core idea.
As noted above, a backup is still needed to protect against data loss. RAID keeps the data available when disks fail or when you are expanding the storage - which is very handy. It provides some protection against data loss too, but not enough.
Ah, that's actually really clever. Thank-you for your simple explanation.
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