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Trying to decide if it is worth having a NAS for home use.
If I have NAS set up as a simple RAID mirror, and if NAS hardware fails, not the HDs. will I be able to pull one of the HDs and connect it to PC to recover data?
is it possible to configure the device to able this?
If I have NAS set up as a simple RAID mirror, and if NAS hardware fails, not the HDs. will I be able to pull one of the HDs and connect it to PC to recover data?
RAID isn't enough to keep data safe, so you should put a backup plan in place for any device you use for primary storage.
That said, you can mount one of a RAID-1 volume when you boot the PC to Linux. If you boot it to Windows then you will usually need RAID recovery software,
Note that Netgear is exiting their storage business (all ReadyNAS platforms are already end-of-life), so you'd need to look at other vendors for a new NAS.
If I have NAS set up as a simple RAID mirror, and if NAS hardware fails, not the HDs. will I be able to pull one of the HDs and connect it to PC to recover data?
RAID isn't enough to keep data safe, so you should put a backup plan in place for any device you use for primary storage.
That said, you can mount one of a RAID-1 volume when you boot the PC to Linux. If you boot it to Windows then you will usually need RAID recovery software,
Note that Netgear is exiting their storage business (all ReadyNAS platforms are already end-of-life), so you'd need to look at other vendors for a new NAS.
ok, I am starting to understand the purpose of a RAID after some more reading.
to use a bunch of cheaper drives, so for a storage purpose, have a RAID of four 2TB drives (RAID 5) gives me 6 TB of space and then have a schedule on NAS to back to external USB HDs or to another NAS.
ok, I am starting to understand the purpose of a RAID after some more reading.
Originally it was about using cheaper drives, though I don't think that's the main driver today. Most arrays now are using NAS-purposed or enterprise-class drives.
One benefit is availability of the storage repository:
Routine disk replacements can be made without taking the storage offline.
The volume can be expanded while remaining on-line
Another is that the volume can be larger than the biggest individual disks.
It's up and running on latest OS, I currently have (3) 2TB drives in a flex-RAID / RAID 5 configuration.
just one last question to confirm.. I can add a 4th 2TB? (or can it be more?) drive anytime and it will add it to current collection without reformatting?
I currently have (3) 2TB drives in a flex-RAID / RAID 5 configuration.
just one last question to confirm.. I can add a 4th 2TB? (or can it be more?) drive anytime and it will add it to current collection without reformatting?
You can add a 4th 2 TB drive, and your storage will increase from 4 TB (3.63 TiB) to 6 TB (5.45 TiB).
With FlexRAID/RAID-5 you need to upgrade all the drives to get the volume to expand. IMO, X-RAID is a better choice for most people. With X-RAID the volume will expand if you upgrade only 2 of the drives. For instance, 4x2TB -> 2x8TB+2x2TB would increase the volume size from 6 TB to 12 TB.
Technically, XRAID would create a second RAID-1 group of 2x6TB using the remaining space on the two 8 TB drives, and concatenate that with the base 4x2TB RAID-5 group.
If you upgraded a third drive to 8 TB later on, the NAS would automatically convert that RAID-1 group to 3x6TB RAID-5, and expand the total volume to 18 TB. (This assumes that you convert to OS-6, since 4.2.x fimware won't expand a volume over 16 TiB).
Note you'll need to rebuild everything anyway after you convert to OS-6.
That is good. Many Barracudas in this size (and other desktop drives) are now SMR.
Generally I recommend going with NAS-purposed or enterprise class drives - Ironwolf or WD Red Plus are all CMR. WD Reds are unfortunately SMR (despite being branded for NAS), so not a good choice.
