Factory reset - workaround idea with double set of disks

A factory reset only touches the disks in the NAS at the time so it would have no effect on your disks that are removed.

Having said that SATA connectors are designed for a limited number of pulls and you can easily damage disks without realising it via ESD.

eton wrote:
...Where is the system stored on the nas?

On an OS partition on the hard drives. Which is one reason why your idea won't work.

Also, sometimes you need to destroy/rebuild the data volumes (for instance to achieve 4K alignment in an older V1 product).

Thanks
I pretty much knew that it wouldn't work. Otherwise this had been a known trick.

According to the attached link below suggests that it might work or is it a different case?

http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_migrate_disks_over_from_an_existing_readynas_to_another

Digger2010 wrote:
According to the attached link below suggests that it might work or is it a different case? http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how ... to_another

This FAQ is about moving your disks from one NAS to another. This is a totally different case - there is no factory reset involved.

Factory presets can only occur if the disk is mounted. Factory preset should only affect the new disks and old might still work?!

If you added old disks to an array then they'd need to be wiped. To make sure the old disks are wiped it would be best to hot-add (add while NAS is on) those disks.

Example:
-Nas with a disk and everything works and is up to date.
-Turn off the nas and the remove the disk.
-Start NAS insert a new disk and preform factory default / reset.
          The new disk is now operational and updated.

-Turn off the nas and the replace disk to the first and start Nas.
     should not the first disk function now ( without being wiped) ?

You mean power off, remove all the new disks and put the old disk(s) back in, then power on.

Yes that should work. However SATA connectors are designed for a limited number of pulls and handling disks bare it is easy to damage them through ESD without realising it.

Digger2010 - to be clear - you are looking to avoid both the factory reset and the disk wipes/resyncs with your method (which will work with mdgm's caveats).

But that is NOT what the original poster was trying to do. Eton wanted to do a factory reset, but also wanted to avoid wiping his data. That is not possible, and it is a different case from what you want to do.