Quick question im not sure if its possible or not, but just asking questions before I buy another drive i dont need.
Currently i have a ReadyNAS 102 RN102. and at the moment i have installed a 2TB Hard Drive. I have brought a second 8TB hard drive to go with it. on installing the second drive i have noticed the NAS do its XRAID backup thing, So now i still only have 2TB of storage space (though its backed up now). And im wasting 6TB of data on the larger disk.
I only use this NAS for movie storage with the TV to use with Plex, I dont need any backup of anything because all the data is also stored on another computers drives.
What i am hoping to do somehow is to merge the 2 drives in the NAS together to gain 10TB of total usuable storage on just the 1 volume. Is this possible? Or am i stuck with either 2 volumes (2TB and 8TB), or will i need to upgrade the 2TB drive to another 8TB and run them in RAID0? (The RAID0 speeds are not a concern)
will i need to upgrade the 2TB drive to another 8TB and run them in RAID0? (The RAID0 speeds are not a concern)
Just to clarify - RAID0 that spans multiple disks is faster than jbod - not slower. The risk with creating a single volume with no redundancy is that when either disk fails you lose all the data on both drives. With two volumes, you only lose the data on the drive that fails. Although you are backed up, it still is inconvenient to need to restore everything (including reinstalling any apps).
So my own practice is either to use normal XRAID or (when maxing capacity) to use jbod with one volume per disk. With multiple volumes you do need to manage the free space on each volume, but I haven't found that to be burdensome.
If you go with two volumes, make the main volume the 8 TB one (since at the next expansion, you'll replace the 2 TB disk for a larger disk). That makes it a bit simpler, since the system won't need to move the apps when that expansion occurs.
What i am hoping to do somehow is to merge the 2 drives in the NAS together to gain 10TB of total usuable storage on just the 1 volume. Is this possible?
Since you are in RAID-1 now, you will need to destroy your current volume:
uninstalling plex
switch to flex-raid
Destroy your existing volume
Create new volume(s)
Reconfigure shares
Restore data from backup
reinstall plex
It is fairly tedious, your other option of course is to just get a second 8 TB drive and stick with XRAID for now.
