I currently own a ReadyNAS Duo V1 with 2 x 2TB drives. It's used for system backups as well as a media server. I also have a 1 TB USB drive attached. They are all nearing capacity.I am expanding to a ReadyNAS Pro with 4 bays. I am starting with 2 x 3 TB WD Red drives. I am planning on using this strictly as a media server. I want to move all of my media files to it from my Duo. What is the best way to do this? Once those are moved I will use the Duo strictly as a backup. How should the volumes be configured on the ReadyNAS Pro in order to maximize expansion in the future? I'm guessing that 4 x 3TB drives would result in roughly 6TBs of usable storage. Can I add single drives later or does the expansion have to be done in pairs? I'm not familiar with all the types of RAID available. I was hoping to get my hands on the Unofficial Guide for Moving from Sparc ReadyNAS to x86 ReadyNAS but it's not available right now. I've chosen the 4 bay ReadyNAS PRO (RNDP4000-100NAS) because it is currently marked down 55% in my area. It's actually $100 cheaper than the ReadyNAS Ultra 4+ (RNDP400U-100NAS). Am I getting an obsolete unit? Thanks!
It's not an obsolete unit. The Pro series has been out for a while and there may be new products coming. Having said this, the Pro series is very good and you are getting a good deal by the sounds of it. You only want 1 volume configured in XRAID2. This is the simplest to set up and expand later, one disk at a time. You should get nearly 9 TB of space using 4 3 TB disks - only 1 disk is used for redundancy. Getting the data across is most easily achieved by setting up a backup task in Frontview to push or pull the data. You are going to need to think about backup as the Duo will only hold 2tb disks, therefore you will immediately have a problem with inadequate space for a complete backup unless you use your USB disk for some of the backup.
