Incremental Upgrades

[TikTok90]

Hi,

After a bit of advice. I'm thinking of getting a RN104. I currently have a Duo running two 500Gb drives. I'm looking to initially put in 2x 1Tb drives, and then transfer the information across. I was then thinking I would add the two 500Gb drives, but I was wondering how the array would be configured, as I would want to be able to upgrade them with larger drives at some point. I understand how the XRAID process worked on the DUO but I', not sure how it would work on the 104.

Hope you can offer some advice.

Thanks

[mdgm-ntgr]

If using X-RAID2 you wouldn't be able to add the 500GB disks after installing 1TB ones. You would need to add 1TB or higher capacity disks.

[StephenB]

You could back up the duo, and install all 4 drives. Then restore the data.

If you have an enclosure you can backup to one of the 1 TB drives temporarily, and then add it into the RN104 later.

[TikTok90]

what is the difference then between the X-RAID I am using now and X-RAID2 on the 104?

[StephenB]

If you are running a duo v1 (4.1.x firmware), then there are several differences.

A duo can only run raid-1 (mirrored drives) since there are only two bays. a 4-bay unit can also run raid-5.

xraid2 generally offers more flexible expansion. For instance, in a 4 bay unit xraid-2 can handle 2x3TB+2x1TB in a single array. XRAID cannot.

There are other major differences in the RN104. One is that the file system is btrfs, not ext4. And OS6 is completely new of course.

[TikTok90]

Sorry - loads of Noob questions. Does XRaid 2 or the 104 allow you to have two arrays running or do all four bays have to be combined as a single array?

[StephenB]

xraid-2 only supports a single array.

However, if you choose flexraid you can set up 2 arrays with the RN104.

[TikTok90]

Is there a document or something that explains the difference between the different Netgear RAID implementations please?

[StephenB]

The only documents I know of for this are the various user manuals