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RN212 ReadyNas with 2 3TB Drives

ianallen13
Aspirant

RN212 ReadyNas with 2 3TB Drives

Hello, 

 

New to this community.  I have a RN212 2 Bay Desktop Storage Unit with 2 x 3 TB Drives.  I just purchased the 2nd 3 TB drive a week ago and installed it.  The Unit is in X-Raid and it shows the 2nd drive, but the space has not expanded at all.  I did format it and the unit recognizes the drive but the space has not increased.  I feel like this is a simple fix or I'm missing something?

 

Also, now that I have 2 drives - how do I ensure my data is backed up?

 

 

RAID.JPG

Model: RN212|2 BAY Desktop ReadyNAS Storage
Message 1 of 2

Accepted Solutions
StephenB
Guru

Re: RN212 ReadyNas with 2 3TB Drives


@ianallen13 wrote:

I have a RN212 2 Bay Desktop Storage Unit with 2 x 3 TB Drives.  I just purchased the 2nd 3 TB drive a week ago and installed it.  The Unit is in X-Raid and it shows the 2nd drive, but the space has not expanded at all.  I did format it and the unit recognizes the drive but the space has not increased.  I feel like this is a simple fix or I'm missing something?

 


You are missing something.

 

Instead of expanding the space, the NAS created a RAID-1 volume.  This RAID mode mirrors the two disks, so anything written to one is automatically written in parallel to the other.  This gives you some protection against failure, and also lets you expand the volume by upgrading both drives to a larger size (one at a time) later on.

 

If this is not what you wanted:  It is unfortunately not easy to undo it.  The simplest way is to back up your data, turn off XRAID, destroy the data volume, and set up the NAS so it has two different volumes (one on each disk).  But your question on backup is making me think that XRAID/RAID-1 is appropriate for you.

 


@ianallen13 wrote:

 

Also, now that I have 2 drives - how do I ensure my data is backed up?

 


As I mentioned above, RAID-1 does give you some protection against disk failures.

 

But it is not a backup - if you want to ensure that your data is safe, you need to keep at least one copy on another device.  The most economical way to do that is to get a USB drive, and create backup job(s) that back up your data to the USB drive.  Then the RAID-1 volume will give you protection from disk failures, and the backup will provide protection from other threats (user error, NAS failure, etc).

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Message 2 of 2

All Replies
StephenB
Guru

Re: RN212 ReadyNas with 2 3TB Drives


@ianallen13 wrote:

I have a RN212 2 Bay Desktop Storage Unit with 2 x 3 TB Drives.  I just purchased the 2nd 3 TB drive a week ago and installed it.  The Unit is in X-Raid and it shows the 2nd drive, but the space has not expanded at all.  I did format it and the unit recognizes the drive but the space has not increased.  I feel like this is a simple fix or I'm missing something?

 


You are missing something.

 

Instead of expanding the space, the NAS created a RAID-1 volume.  This RAID mode mirrors the two disks, so anything written to one is automatically written in parallel to the other.  This gives you some protection against failure, and also lets you expand the volume by upgrading both drives to a larger size (one at a time) later on.

 

If this is not what you wanted:  It is unfortunately not easy to undo it.  The simplest way is to back up your data, turn off XRAID, destroy the data volume, and set up the NAS so it has two different volumes (one on each disk).  But your question on backup is making me think that XRAID/RAID-1 is appropriate for you.

 


@ianallen13 wrote:

 

Also, now that I have 2 drives - how do I ensure my data is backed up?

 


As I mentioned above, RAID-1 does give you some protection against disk failures.

 

But it is not a backup - if you want to ensure that your data is safe, you need to keep at least one copy on another device.  The most economical way to do that is to get a USB drive, and create backup job(s) that back up your data to the USB drive.  Then the RAID-1 volume will give you protection from disk failures, and the backup will provide protection from other threats (user error, NAS failure, etc).

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