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I have a ReadyNAS 212 with two 4TB drives running RAID 0. I would like to replace these drives to increase capacity and use RAID 1 for data redundancy. Firmware is currently 6.10.7
I have two questions..
1) What is the largest size drives I can use?
2) Can I copy some data to an external USB drive, remove the existing 4TB drives, install the new drives, copy the USB data, remove the new drives and reinstall the old drives to migrate a little at a time?
There is no known upper limit. Netgear has tested an 18 TB drive in your NAS model, but likely the 20 TB WDC and Seagate drives would work. Netgear is slow to test new drives - and AFAICT never remove obsolete drives from their HCL. So I'd just ignore it.
Instead I recommend NAS purposed or enterprise class drives for ReadyNAS. WD Red Plus and WD Red Pro are ok (CMR technology), but avoid the current WD Red models, as they are all SMR. All Seagate Ironwolf models are CMR.
2) Can I copy some data to an external USB drive, remove the existing 4TB drives, install the new drives, copy the USB data, remove the new drives and reinstall the old drives to migrate a little at a time?
Yes. The OS and all settings are on the disks, so you can do this. Make sure you power down the NAS before you swap though. Also, label the disks by slot number - although the system should work even if the drives are out-of-order, it is best to preserve it.
FWIW, RAID isn't enough to keep data safe, so I do recommend putting a backup plan in place for any files that are only stored on your ReadyNAS. Maybe price a larger USB drive now, so you can take care of this as part of the upgrade.
There is no known upper limit. Netgear has tested an 18 TB drive in your NAS model, but likely the 20 TB WDC and Seagate drives would work. Netgear is slow to test new drives - and AFAICT never remove obsolete drives from their HCL. So I'd just ignore it.
Instead I recommend NAS purposed or enterprise class drives for ReadyNAS. WD Red Plus and WD Red Pro are ok (CMR technology), but avoid the current WD Red models, as they are all SMR. All Seagate Ironwolf models are CMR.
2) Can I copy some data to an external USB drive, remove the existing 4TB drives, install the new drives, copy the USB data, remove the new drives and reinstall the old drives to migrate a little at a time?
Yes. The OS and all settings are on the disks, so you can do this. Make sure you power down the NAS before you swap though. Also, label the disks by slot number - although the system should work even if the drives are out-of-order, it is best to preserve it.
FWIW, RAID isn't enough to keep data safe, so I do recommend putting a backup plan in place for any files that are only stored on your ReadyNAS. Maybe price a larger USB drive now, so you can take care of this as part of the upgrade.
