how to get thru NAS to format disks??

I am going to have to look that one up. The NAS formats the drives itself when they are installed. If the drives are new, you can either mount both initially or just start with one. Then once the unit is up and operating on one drive, while the unit is on, install the second one and let the system initialize the disk, add it to the array and synchronize it.

The only system that can format a drive to be used in the NAS, is the NAS itself.

But - if you format the drives in you PC using NTFS, you will just slow down the process. It is best to install a drive unformatted.

Not having to separately format would be an awesome relief! thank you Papabear!! (due to a nearby forest fire, we've seen a bear or two walking by, but none so helpful!)

The software manual on page 10 says "If you have a diskless ReadyNAS unit, you must first install and format at least one disk before you can use the RAIDar setup utility or FrontView Management Console." SW manual linky: http://www.readynas.com/download/documentation/UM/ReadyNAS_Home_SW_6June11.pdf

I guess it is in the phraseology used. What they were trying to cover, was the fact that a unit without at least one disk will not boot nor show up in RAIDar. Once you install a single disk, the system with do a quick test of the disk (similar to the way your PC does, just to see if it is functional and connected), then do a file system check (no OS, no file system) and then format the disk if there is no filesystem, and then install the OS, and then set up the system and then finish booting. At this point it will start a 10 minute wait for access by RAIDar. If you have previously installed RAIDar and start RAIDar, you will get a message about choosing the version of RAID on the system, X-Raid2 or Flex-Raid.

That paragraph was put in because a number of people would buy a diskless system, hook it up and try to turn it on without disks. And then be confused when it would not boot.

I appreciate the comment about the bears, of course my hiking bear tries not to eat too many members and just be helpful so they can enjoy their NAS.

thanks again Papabear! I ended up leaving the Ultra overnight; it sync'd up fine and I created shares and started moving over data, whee! I read your reply the next morning and shutdown the NAS to move it from PC direct connect back to the router, and before I could power it back up, we lost power for an hour. Good thing I got an APC UPS to go with the ReadyNAS!

cheers