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RN104 - New Setup
Hi, I have a 4 bay with a 2TB-1TB-2TB-3TB disc setup - bay 1 and 3 are Raid 1 bays 2 & 3 are JBOD. The NAS is use as backup for everyday stuff on the raid and multimedia for house access on the J...
whyshouldI wrote:
In the scheme of things in probably makes sense to buy 4 bay rather than 2.
Yes. I'd still consolidate onto two disks, just because the larger drives are more cost effective over the long run, and the price increase is modest. When I checked pricing, 2x8 was cheaper than 3x6.
This also would allow you to rebuild your RN104 and use it as a backup.
whyshouldI wrote:Leading question time - which 4 bay would you recommend - this is for general backups and media streaming - the RN 104 was capable so it does not need to be an expensive purchase.
This is tricky right now. Normally I'd go with the RN214. But there is little ReadyNAS inventory out there, and the prices have skyrocketed. I suspect that's related to production/distribution problems due to the pandemic.
The RN626 and RN628 are the only desktop models that are still around their usual price - and they are far more capable than you need. Since your current NAS is working, you might want to hold off on upgrading until the RN214 prices come back down.
Local prices for you will vary of course, but this what I am seeing on Amazon US for diskless NAS:
Desktop
- RN214: $850
- RN424: $1350
- RN626: $1000
- RN628: $1100
Rackmount
- 2304: $620
- 3138: $900
The RN214 is typically $300-$400, the RN424 is typically $400-$500. They just aren't worth the current prices.
If I had to buy now, I'd personally get the RN628 - actually below it's usual price, and $100 over the RN626 gets you two more bays. But it's much more capable than what you need.
The 2304 is worth a look if you are ok with a rackmount. It should perform about the same as the RN214 and outperform the RN104. It is priced a bit higher than usual (it was $400 a few months ago). The rackmount doesn't need to be in a rack - but it will likely be noisier than a desktop NAS, so you'd need a place for it where the noise doesn't matter.
The 3138 is actually a fair price, but personally I'd go with the RN626 or RN628 instead - significantly higher performance, and similar in price.
Before you do anything, consider that you have a bottom of the line NAS, which has a limited CPU and less memory than current models. If you currently have no backup, your best solution may be to buy a new NAS for those three new drives, copy everything over from your old NAS, then relegate the old one to backup duties.
But if you choose to continue using the 104 and expand it with three new 3TB drives, here is how I would go about it, assuming your RAID array is the primary one (usually data):
Replace one of the 2TB with a 3TB with power on and let is sync. Once that is complete, do the same with the other 2TB. Note that the sync for the second drive will be two-step. One to sync the original 2TB, and a second to expand to 3TB.
Then, copy the contents of the 1TB over to the new 3TB array. Once you have competed that, do an EXPORT from tthe volume menu for the 1TB drive, and then remove it. Now, put the last 3TB in bay 2 in place of the 1TB, and allow another 2-step sync process.
Now you can copy the content of the 3TB volume to the new 6TB volume, and again do an EXPORT of drive 4 and remove it.
At this point, you have a 6TB RAID5 array and one empty bay. You can insert either of the old drives with power off and re-boot, and that volume will re-join the NAS. This is just in case you find you forgot something and need to copy it to the RAID volume. You can then export it again. You should not count on doing this often. At some point, you may want to put the 3TB in with power on (to keep the volume from mounting) and then do a FORMAT, after which XRAID will add it as another 3TB of RAID.
While there are drivers available to allow you to access the NAS drives from a Windows PC, they are still in beta release, and are best used only when there is no other means of data recovery from a NAS volume.
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