Note that the archive disks are not designed for RAID use.
RAIDiator-x86 4.2.x has some expansion limitations that you will run into:
1. You cannot expand by more than 8TB over the life of the volume. So if the volume was 5.4TB when you last did a factory default you can't expand past 13.4TB
2. You cannot expand past 16TB. To get a higher volume capacity you would need to do a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything) with the disks in place.
ReadyNAS OS 6 does not have these expansion limitations.
Archive disks are not designed for RAID/NAS but the Western Digital Green drives are not neither and i always used them without any issue in 3 different ReadyNAS units. I guess i won't have any problem with the Archive drive unless something is different between WD Green and Seagate Archive ?
I'm running 4.2.19 but i don't remember what size the volume was during the last factory default. Right now my volume is 9254 Gb
To upgrade to OS6 i have to reset default and lose data ?
In worst situation, my 8tb will just be detected as 3GB or 4GB and the volume won't be expanded ? I want to do this switch just because i'm selling a 2TB to a friend. I could just expand volume later
SMR drives are not intended for RAID (no matter what size). Some people are using them anyway (as you can see on that thread). I use jbod, but decided to stay with 6 TB WDC Red for now.
When i receive it, i just remove one of the 3TB drives and replace it with the 6TB. Array will rebuild by itself, nothing else to do ?
No need to backup first ? You will probably say "always backup before doing anything" but i mean, usually nothing goes wrong when changing 1 disk, it's just like one of the disk failed and i have to replace it with another, right ?
Well you should backup regularly anyway unless you don't care about your data. No important data should be stored on just the one device.
When you replace a disk in a single redundant volume the volume is unprotected till the resulting resync completes. If another disk is failing (disks can fail without any warning) and dies during the heavy stress of the resync then you could end up needing to restore from backup or consider purchasing data recovery which may ultimately prove to be partially/fully unsuccessful.
Some good things to do would include, downloading your logs (see the Sending Logs link in my sig - no need to send these in atm, but that articles shows how to download them) before adding the disk and keeping those logs in a safe place (they could be useful in the unlikely event something goes wrong)
You should also check the SMART stats of the disks. If a disk appears to be failing then obviously replace that disk first.
I would also suggest downloading the logs after a disk has been added to the array as that could also be useful in the unlikely event something goes wrong.
