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RN204 changing from 2-4TB to 4-3TB drives
Hello, I currently have two 4TB drives in my RN204 (firm 6.8.0 & X-RAID) and I want to change them out for four 3TB drives. There is currently 2.64TB of data on the RN. Two of the 3TB drives are new and two have data on them from another RAID setup (I won't need to save that data). All drives are WD Red. I am using the RN for my Mac time machine.
What is the best method of switching out these drives?
Is it possible to add the two new 3TB drives to the RN and copy over the data from the two 4TB drives (since the data is less than 3TB)? Would I then be able to remove the two 4TB drives and then add the two used 3TB drives to the RN and reformat them to expand the capacity?
Or should I backup the RN to one of the new 3TB drives, then remove the two 4TB drives from the RN, replace them with the 3TB backup, and then add the other three 3TB drives one-by-one?
Sorry for all the newbie questions.
Cheers
You can switch to flexraid, and then add two 3TB disks as a second RAID-1 volume. then you can use the built-in backup to copy the data to the new array. If you use the home folders, you will need to back them up to a temporary share.
Then destroy the existing volume, and switch back to XRAID.
Finally insert the two remaining 3 TB drives, and restore the home folders.
There is a risk here, it is possible that the NAS won't migrate the time machine data when you destroy the original volume. It will migrate .apps, but I'm not sure about Time Machine (and it's not something I use).
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You can switch to flexraid, and then add two 3TB disks as a second RAID-1 volume. then you can use the built-in backup to copy the data to the new array. If you use the home folders, you will need to back them up to a temporary share.
Then destroy the existing volume, and switch back to XRAID.
Finally insert the two remaining 3 TB drives, and restore the home folders.
There is a risk here, it is possible that the NAS won't migrate the time machine data when you destroy the original volume. It will migrate .apps, but I'm not sure about Time Machine (and it's not something I use).
Thanks Stephen. I will look up how to change from xraid to flex raid as well as backing up to the new array. I'm not sure if I am using the Home folders, but it looks like my home folder just has 2 user folders in it:
If you are referring to the Documents, Pictures, Music, Video folders, I don't have anything in them, so I guess I am ok there.
By destroying the existing volume, can I just remove the 2 existing drives? Or do I need to do something in the Admin > System > Volumes tab?
Thanks again for your help!
billl4 wrote:
By destroying the existing volume, can I just remove the 2 existing drives? Or do I need to do something in the Admin > System > Volumes tab?You need to destroy it via the settings wheel on the volume tab. Then you can remove the drives.
billl4 wrote:
Thanks Stephen. I will look up how to change from xraid to flex raid as well as backing up to the new array. I'm not sure if I am using the Home folders, but it looks like my home folder just has 2 user folders in it:
What's in MP_timemachine?
Overall, the risk here is that you'll lose your existing timemachine backups - that isn't something I'd personally worry about (assuming the OSX systems are healthy), but of course you might feel differently.
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