Hello, I have the RN 102 with a single 3 TB drive installed. Im slowing filling up the drive and would like to add more capacity. Id like to add 2 8tb drives in raid 1, but would I be allowed to drop in one 8tb drive into the NAS, let it transfer files and then add the other 8tb drive to that? Would I still get the full 8tb or would I be losing 5tb by doing that.
If that is not possible, how do i go about adding more capacity?
but would I be allowed to drop in one 8tb drive into the NAS, let it transfer files and then add the other 8tb drive to that?
Yes, and you will end up with an 8 TB RAID-1 volume if you do that.
You should make a back up before you do this, since the data is most at risk when manipulating disks. So another option is to power down, insert the two new drives together, reconfigure the NAS and restore the shares from backup. My guess that both paths will take about the same amount of time.
If I were to power down and reconfigure with 2 new drives how would I be able to get the data from the 3TB drive that is in there?
Sorry a bit lost as to how it all works, I was told that if I were to insert a larger drive and have it copy data that i would lose capacity in a RAID 1. Im just trying to prevent myself from pulling my hair out later when I spend 500$ + on drives only to have the same capacity.
I was told that if I were to insert a larger drive and have it copy data that i would lose capacity in a RAID 1.
Who told you that? That information isn't correct when you are using X-RAID - as I posted earlier.
You can tell your source that XRAID would automatically create a second 5 TB RAID-1 group, concatenate it with the existing 3 TB RAID-1 group to form a single 8 TB volume, and then expand the 3 TB file system to use the full 8 TB.
If I were to power down and reconfigure with 2 new drives how would I be able to get the data from the 3TB drive that is in there?
You'd need to back up the data to some other device - for instance USB drives. The NAS web ui includes backup jobs that you can set up to do this (and even run automatically).
But you really need to do that no matter how you expand your NAS. RAID isn't enough to keep your data safe - the best way to do that is to have at least one other copy on a different device.
