Forum Discussion

Tutor

Jun 27, 2016

Volumes and Backup

I have the ReadyNAS 204 with OS 6.5.1 I have been seeing people post about Volumes, I did not do anything with Volumes when I set it up. Should I assume I have 1 Volume? I am new to all of th...

Installation & Upgrade

ilneill

Apprentice

Jun 27, 2016

Hi Madcow68,

I also have a RN204. Mine has 4x 3TB drives in it.

I would assume you have at least 1 volume - look in the System->Volume tab. You probably have a single RAID5 volume like me.

1. To add another drive, yes simply slide it into the 4th bay. No need to even turn the box off. Expect it to take a considerable while to sorts itself out (reshape, resync etc). After it is finished you will have a total NAS capacity of 8.17TB.

2. If one drive in your RAID array fails, your data will "survive" on the remaining discs. When the dead drive is replaced the volume will resync. If 2 or more drives fail you will lose everything. I would NOT call that a back up though. It is hardware redundancy, that is all. To have a real backup, you need at least a USB hard drive and all your data copied to it (yes, many other backup solutions exist). Repeat, do NOT consider RAID as a backup!

Good luck! Do ping me if you have any more questions about my setup.

Ian

Madcow68
Tutor
Jun 27, 2016
Ian-

Perfect. So I should add another 3TB drive and get a USB backup.

If I have 4 drives how many can fail before I lose everything?

What are you using for a backup?
- ilneill
  Apprentice
  Jun 27, 2016
  Hi,
  
  You can add another 3TB drive... I do not know if you should. If you need the extra space, then it is the easy thing to do.
  
  You ~~should~~ must get a backup if you care at all, even just remotely, for your data. With RAID5 and 4 drives, you can recover from 1 failed drive. Any more than that and you loose the lot. I know that sounds harsh (and I am not even considering sophisticated and expensive revovery services), but RAID is just hardware redundancy. Contrast with a single drive solution and if that drive fails.
  
  My backup solution consists of 2 separate USB hard drives hanging off the back up the RN204. I have scheduled RSYNC backup jobs to copy my data to the USB drives. Yes, I have 2 USB drives - I backup my data twice. I also have myRN204 on a UPS so that power spikes, brown-outs and black-outs do not threaten my data.
  
  Now, you may think that I have gone a "bit far", but I have built this solution over time - I just did not go out and but the lot in one go. I am also in the "prevention is better than cure" fan club, as I know restoring any data from a backup up is far easier than trying to recover it from a failed drive.
  
  I hope this helps,
  
  Ian