I'm considering buying a ReadyNas 104. At the moment I just want to use it as a simple media server and i have no direct need for more than 4 (or even 2) TB of storage. In the future this will probably increase and i want to leave the option open to introduce some redundancy in the future as well.
This will probably be quite a newbie question on a forum like this. But Is it possible to start with say a single 2, 3 or 4 TB drive and then at some point in the future add drives incrementally to increase the capacity and/or introduce redundancy? Off course, in the future i might not be able to find identical drives (or maybe i'll want to add a higher capacity one then the initial one). Will this be a problem?
You can start with a single drive. Later on, you have two choices when you add a second drive (a) put a separate volume on the new drive, making all the space on it available for more storage (b) convert the existing volume to raid-1, giving you redundancy
with (b) the second drive needs to be the same size or larger. You won't get any more space even if you use a larger drive, unless you also upgrade the first drive
This carries through to adding a third and fourth drive, though there are of course more combinations.
For instance, -one large volume with single disk redundancy -4 volumes, one for each disk -2 volumes, both mirrored (so each has single disk redundancy).
When you get to the point where you are adding a second drive, you should think through what configuration you ultimately want (selecting either flexraid or xraid at that point). That is not something you need to decide now (which is one advantage of OS6 over the older ReadyNAS).
Thanks, I guess this is what I needed to know. I'll start of with just one drive (probably ST4000VN000) and then i'll have plenty of flexibility in the future.
The two most likely future scenario's would then be: One volume: add second drive for redundancy, ad third drive for storage, add fourth drive for storage Multiple volumes: add second drive for storage (new volume), add third drive for storage (new volume), add fourth drive for redundancy on third drive/volume.
Am I right in assuming this can be done whilst preserving the data that is already on the nas and with drives of the same size (not necessarily exactly the same type)?
Am I right in assuming this can be done whilst preserving the data that is already on the nas and with drives of the same size (not necessarily exactly the same type)?
Yes. Your first option is the default behavior (using XRAID).
Before you install the second disk you should be able to convert the RNxxx to flexraid with no data loss. That gives you the ability to do second option. (You can't do this trick on the older ReadyNAS btw).
With xraid, you can add bigger disks, but smaller ones. If you go with with separate volumes, you can add any size you want (as they are totally independent).
