I know you cannot rename a HDD from within the ReadyNAS administration panel itself but I was wondering if it is possible (without causing complications) to eject the drive, insert it into a HDD docking station, re-name it in Windows, then insert the drive back into the NAS with it's new name.
Would this be an appropriate method of renaming a drive without causing issues and if so, what is the best way to go about doing it? Eg, power down the NAS ,eject the drive, insert again once renamed, power on
The ReadyNAS uses Linux software RAID and the BTRFS filesystem.
Renaming a volume would require using SSH (at your own risk) and would require a huge number of config changes and you could easily miss at least one. This is not something we would provide support for. Don't try this.
If you want a different volume name, backup your data, destroy the volume, create a new volume and the shares that were on it and restore your data from backup.
The whole reason why I asked is because I kept my first HDD named as 'data' which I believe is the default name. If I put a brand new HDD in another bay will it cause issues? I can't remember if I had to format the drive (hence getting the chance to name it) before use or if it worked from the get go which if so would be an issue as both drives would be 'data'
If using X-RAID a brand new disk would be wiped and you'd get a RAID-1 mirror. The same data would be on both disks. Note that backups are still important. Don't store important data on just the one device.
If not using X-RAID there would be no data volume on the new disk by default and you could create one with the name you want (must be a different name to the existing data volume).
The whole reason why I asked is because I kept my first HDD named as 'data' which I believe is the default name.
Let's clarify - "data" is the volume name, not the disk name. That distinction matters when you add a second drive. If you are using the default XRAID, then the second disk adds redundancy to the existing volume. You will still just see a single volume in the web ui, and it is still called "data".
If you were to change to flexraid, you could use a second disk for a second volume. You'd need to name that second volume something else (and the system will prompt you for that name when you create the volume). Once created, you can't rename it - though you can destroy the volume and create a new one (losing all the files).
