Migrating from X-RAID2 single redundancy to Dual redundancy

Correct. If you are pulling all the disks anyway and have a backup, then inserting all the new ones at the beginning is a good approach. It is faster than adding one disk at a time, and gives you more headroom on expansion (in this case letting you reach 16 TB if 8 TB drives ever showed up!).

One variation (since you are doing dual redundancy) - you can install 3 of the 4 drives, which will default to single redundancy. Then add the last, specifying it is for redundancy in Frontview. That avoids the 10 minute window to override the default raid config via RAIDar.

Remember to reinstall your add-ons before you restore the NAS config.

Great tip starting with 3 drives then adding the 4th. I'll go that route, thank you!

Also thanks for the tip on the ST4000VN000 vs the ST4000DM000. Compared the specs and Load/Unload Cycles and Power-On Hour ratings are double on VN drive. Well worth an extra $30.

I actually have one more question re: backup strategy going forward which I'll ask in the backup forum.

StephenB wrote:
One variation (since you are doing dual redundancy) - you can install 3 of the 4 drives, which will default to single redundancy. Then add the last, specifying it is for redundancy in Frontview. That avoids the 10 minute window to override the default raid config via RAIDar.

I went ahead and set up the system this way ^ - first with 3 disks in single redundancy and today adding the forth disk for dual redundancy.

The initial single redundancy resync took about 6 hours.

According to Frontview, migrating to dual redundancy will take about 6 days! :shock: This is way longer than I expected and will take more time than I have to finish my job setting things up.

Restriping 1% complete, Time to finish 158 hr 36 min, Speed 6738 KB/sec

Is this normal? Searching the forums, it seems that dual redundancy is slow. If that's the case, since the system is still completely blank, would it significantly speed things up to simply do an another factory default and rebuild the volume as dual redundant from scratch, rather than re-stripe?

Would be much quicker to do a factory default and rebuild from scratch. When you do the factory default, during the 10 minute countdown open RAIDar, click setup, choose X-RAID2, tick the dual-redundancy option and confirm your choice.

mdgm wrote:
Would be much quicker to do a factory default and rebuild from scratch. When you do the factory default, during the 10 minute countdown open RAIDar, click setup, choose X-RAID2, tick the dual-redundancy option and confirm your choice.

12 hours vs 6 days. Big difference and way more in line with my expectations. Live and learn! Thanks again for your help.