Increasing Capacity on a ReadyNAS 4312

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captainspauldin wrote:

Hello:

We have a ReadyNAS 4312 that is configured with RAID 6 and X-RAID.  We have it filled with 9 drives that are 4TB each.  We would like to increase the overall capacity of the device without losing data.  What is the recommended method of doing this?  Replace one drive at a time with a larger capacity drive until we reach the desired amount? 

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Hot-swapping one drive at a time is the normal way.  Wait for the NAS to complete the resync before hot-swapping the next.

You don't need to upgrade all 9 drives - the NAS will start expanding the volume when it resyncs the 4th replacement. 

One strategy that is often cost effective is to get large enough drives that upgrading 4-6 now will give you the capacity you need.  Then upgrade the rest over time. For example - you have 28 TB now.  Upgrading 4 drives to 16 TB would add another 24 TB right away, bring the storage up to 52 TB.  Then upgrading a 5th drive to 16 TB later on would add another 12 TB to the volume. 

Of course you also have 3 empty slots.  So if the 4 TB drives are healthy, you can shift to (for example) 8x4TB+4x16TB - only replacing one healthy drive.  That particular mix would give you 64 TB.

I always recommend testing the replacements before using them.  Generally I use vendor tools in a Windows PC, and first do a full non-destructive test.  Then I follow that up with a full erase test.

Netgear recommends making sure you have an up to date backup before you start replacing drives.