Hi all! after fighting with a Sans Digital NAS, that nearly litterally cooked a couple drives they got so hot, I aquired an RN104 to compliment my existing rn214. I was not able to find another 214 at a reasonable price, just the 104 was available so I grabbed at it. What I'd like to do is take my existing 4x4TB raid5 drives out of my 214 and put them into the 104. Then I'll place 4x8tb drives into the 214 and build a new raid5 array. Can I simply swap those 4 x 4tb drives on over to the 104 and will it recognize the raid5 array? my sole purpose of these NAS is for Plex datastore. Plex is running on a pc that accesses the NASs for content via UNC shares. So the NAS boxes will only be as a file server and nothing else. Plex will not be running on the NAS itself. So I don't think I'll have any issues at all with the 104, however, I figured I might as well put the smaller array into the 104, and use the power of the 214 with the larger array. The smaller array will be relatively static as far as receiving content, as there is barely 800Gig free. thanks all! Mike B

Yup, that's a Pro6 with the faster processor. If RAM has not already been upgraded on it, you'll need to bump it up to at least 2GB. But that RAM is dirt cheap since it's slow by today's standards.

Short answer: Yup! Longer answer: It's best to insure the new chassis has the same OS version as the old before you do it. If it's not, it'll be a case of "most recent wins" and either the unit flash or the OS on the drives will update to the newer one. It is extremely important to do this if either unit is on a very old version. The release notes explain what multiple steps must be taken to upgrade some ARM units when making a big jump in versions. And not asked: You could have gone to any OS6 based NAS with 4 or more bays. The 104 is memory restricted (and cannot have memory expanded), so is going to run slower. If you're relegating it to backups, then it probably doesn't matter.

cool, so make sure they are both running the same OS version. If not upgrade them (or the one not running the latest version), then I can swap the drives over, nice. yah I'll jsut be using the 104 to serve up files for my plex server that will connect to it via UNC path. the only 214 I could find was like $450 on ebay, and I didn't want to pay that much for it as I bought this one for $250 filled with drives LOL. The 104 was less than what I paid for the 214 so I jumped on it. I'll keep my eyes out for a 214 though, I really like it. but you said I can swap into a 6bay or 8bay as well huh? nice I'll keep my eyes open for one of them. quick question, if I get a 6 bay, can I expand the raid5 array just by adding 2 additional drives? or do I have to rebuild the entgire array then restore from backup? thanks! Mike B

exibar wrote: quick question, if I get a 6 bay, can I expand the raid5 array just by adding 2 additional drives? Yes.

As long as you're just using the 104 for file storage, not the Plex server itself, I think you'll find it quite adequate. The price you saw for the 214 is about typical right now, there being no new stock of ReadyNAS. Some are asking really exorbitant prices, but I suspect they never actually sell. Since you are in no hurry, you can continue to wait for one that's lower priced. You just need to jump quickly before it's gone. BTW, in the category of NAS running OS6 that will work, that includes legacy machines upgraded to OS6. Even an Ultra4 (with memory upgraded to 2GB) will out-perform a 104 in most tasks. One exception is that it has no USB3.

swapping drives from a rn 214 over to a rn104

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Sandshark
Sensei
May 18, 2022
Short answer: Yup!

Longer answer: It's best to insure the new chassis has the same OS version as the old before you do it. If it's not, it'll be a case of "most recent wins" and either the unit flash or the OS on the drives will update to the newer one. It is extremely important to do this if either unit is on a very old version. The release notes explain what multiple steps must be taken to upgrade some ARM units when making a big jump in versions.

And not asked: You could have gone to any OS6 based NAS with 4 or more bays. The 104 is memory restricted (and cannot have memory expanded), so is going to run slower. If you're relegating it to backups, then it probably doesn't matter.
- exibar
  Aspirant
  May 18, 2022
  cool, so make sure they are both running the same OS version. If not upgrade them (or the one not running the latest version), then I can swap the drives over, nice.
  
  yah I'll jsut be using the 104 to serve up files for my plex server that will connect to it via UNC path. the only 214 I could find was like $450 on ebay, and I didn't want to pay that much for it as I bought this one for $250 filled with drives LOL. The 104 was less than what I paid for the 214 so I jumped on it.
  I'll keep my eyes out for a 214 though, I really like it.
  
  but you said I can swap into a 6bay or 8bay as well huh? nice I'll keep my eyes open for one of them.
  
  quick question, if I get a 6 bay, can I expand the raid5 array just by adding 2 additional drives? or do I have to rebuild the entgire array then restore from backup?
  
  thanks!
  Mike B
  - StephenB
    Guru - Experienced User
    May 19, 2022
    exibar wrote:
    
    quick question, if I get a 6 bay, can I expand the raid5 array just by adding 2 additional drives?
    
    Yes.

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swapping drives from a rn 214 over to a rn104

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