X-raid syncing a fomated used disk

[FredJohn]

I want to use a used 2Tb seagate disk to replace one of drives in a ReadyNAS NV+4000. I have only 2 2tb drives in a X-raid configuration but rotating total 4 drives ( 2 of them kept in another place as an shuretobeshure backup) When I bought a new disk it was only to put it in the NAS and it automatically synced with the first one but now when I want to use a earlier backup disk with a old backup on it Iam not shure what to do. How do I know which of the drives  will be synced? I dont want the old drive to overwrite the new one.

Should I reformat the old drive before i sync it? Or remove the partition? Or will the NAS automatically overwrite the old disk with the never one or will they be merged?

/Fredrik

[JennC]

Hello FredJohn,

Any disk that you will use as a replacement of an existing one or adding to an existing volume of the NAS should be fresh, formatted and no partition.

Welcome to the community!

Regards,

[StephenB]

We don't recommmend that particular backup strategy.

That said, you need to power down the NAS, remove both existing disks, and then insert the "backup" drive by itself.

Then power up the NAS, and it should boot normally.  You can then recover your file.

Finally, power down and insert both of the original disks into their original slots and power up again.

[aks]

It sounds like you don't want to extract data from the old disk, but rather use it as a backup (shadow copy)? This strategy is particularly risky, as you might not have all the data on a failed disk so recovery might be impossible.

In any event, I believe simply inserting the drive whilst the unit is on will automatically start the format process of that drive. With hot swap, it formats the newly inserted drive.

You should have alternative backups before starting this.

[StephenB]

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@FredJohn wrote:

but now when I want to use a earlier backup disk with a old backup on it Iam not shure what to do.

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@aks - my understanding from this is that he absolutely does want to extract data from the old disk.  Though perhaps this is a hypothetical.

He is using RAID-1 (only two disks installed), so the procedure I provided above should work.

I agree it is not a good backup strategy - repeated resyncs create needless stress on both drives, and a failure during resync can lose data. Plus I don't think SATA connectors are designed to be repeatedly pulled/reinserted.

[Sandshark]

I also read this that he just wants to re-use an older drive without regard to the data it contains.  Hot adding the drive to an NV+ should work (there is an extra step needed on current OS6 units).  But to be doubly safe, you could use a PC and remove the partitions before inserting the drive.

[StephenB]

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@Sandshark wrote:

I also read this that he just wants to re-use an older drive without regard to the data it contains.  Hot adding the drive to an NV+ should work (there is an extra step needed on current OS6 units).  But to be doubly safe, you could use a PC and remove the partitions before inserting the drive.

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If he wants to simply re-use the drive (destroying what is on it) then I agree that hot-inserting the drive will do that.