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Forum Discussion
Ready NAS 314 X-RAID volume expansion RAID 5
I have 4 x 4TB drives which are now at less that 10% capacity, I do not have any spare bays. The NAS is an X-RAID, not X-RAID2 model. Firmware version is 6.9.3. I am not a technical expert so woul...
tonycrimson wrote:
The NAS is an X-RAID, not X-RAID2 model.
The RN314 runs the latest X-RAID. X-RAID2 is actually older, and has some limitations you don't have.
tonycrimson wrote:
1) I believe that I will need to replace 2 of the 4TB drives and install 2 larger drives of equal size (e.g. 6TB or 8TB) to increase capacity and maintain the RAID 5 configuration, is that correct?
Yes. Though technically you are combining RAID-1 and RAID-5.
The capacity rule is "sum the disks and subtract the largest". So if you go with 2x8TB+2x4TB you will end up with a 16TB volume (~14.5 TiB) - an increase of 4 TB (~4.39 TiB).
Going with 8 TB is more cost effective (per TB gained). I always recommend NAS-purposed (WD Reds or Seagate Ironwolf drives) or enterprise-clase drives. I'd avoid desktop models.
Note that many large drives have dropped the side-center mounting hole. If that is missing in the model you purchase, you will need to remove the plastic bracket in the disk trays and screw the drives to the bottom of the tray using the screws that came with your NAS. The bottom mounts won't all line up, but you'll still be able to securely mount the disks. More info on how to remove the bracket is on pages 163ff here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS_%20OS6_Desktop_HM_EN.pdf
tonycrimson wrote:
2) I have already got back ups of all the data so do I just remove any 2 of the older drives and slot in both of the new ones at the same time
Absolutely NOT. If you do that, you will lose your data. Single redundancy (RAID-5) can handle one disk removal or failure, but not two.
- Replace one drive (hot-swap with the system running) and wait for it to resync.
- After it completes, hotswap the second drive, and wait for it to resync.
After that, the volume will expand to use the extra space.
tonycrimson wrote:3) Can I continue using my NAS to open, work on and save files (music, photos, videos, documents etc) whist the data is being reconfigured across the new drives?
You can, but the NAS won't be as responsive as usual.
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