can i have different HDD sizes.. with raid? e.g thinking of starting of with 2 TB and may later will have two 4 TB hdd.. is that possible?
896601
You may have found your answer already. I' answer anyway. Yes, Synology Hybrid Raid option allows for different sized disks and upgrading one drive at a time. The volume capacity is based on the smallest disk installed but SHR will let you use the excess as separate storage. SHR allows expansion by adding larger discs.
1302605
That is the theory of a RAID 5. I had a 4TB drive fail after a month on duty. Western Digital immediately sent me a new one, I plugged it in and it took about four days to re-establish the full RAID. My 16TB with 12 TB usable space on RAID 5 was loaded with 4TB of records. So, if you want to upgrade your system one drive at a time, better be patient.
1570068
From everything I have read about Raid arrays, no to different sizes.... Yes to different manufactures (if they are compatable with each other) If you attempt to use multiple sizes, the smallest become the default and it may not work correctly. Different manufactures may or may not work depending upon who made the HHDs.In any case, I would not try either different manufactures or sizes. Mine worked perfectly with the same size and manufacture. Depending upon the RAID type you select, you could be taking the chance of losing all of your data, especially if you lose a HHD and the system tries to rebuild to a new one (different size and manufacture could gum up the works). From everything I have read about Raid arrays, no to different sizes.... Yes to different manufactures (if they are compatable with each other) If you attempt to use multiple sizes, the smallest become the default and it may not work correctly. Different manufactures may or may not work depending upon who made the HHDs.In any case, I would not try either different manufactures or sizes. Mine worked perfectly with the same size and manufacture. Depending upon the RAID type you select, you could be taking the chance of losing all of your data, especially if you lose a HHD and the... » Read More From everything I have read about Raid arrays, no to different sizes.... Yes to different manufactures (if they are compatable with each other) If you attempt to use multiple sizes, the smallest become the default and it may not work correctly. Different manufactures may or may not work depending upon who made the HHDs.In any case, I would not try either different manufactures or sizes. Mine worked perfectly with the same size and manufacture. Depending upon the RAID type you select, you could be taking the chance of losing all of your data, especially if you lose a HHD and the system tries to rebuild to a new one (different size and manufacture could gum up the works). « Show Less
750550
The documentation is a bit unclear on this. In one place it says to use the same size drive, but in the "Replacing a Drive" section is says that you should use the same size or larger, but the extra capacity would be unused. Assuming you are using RAID1 then you should use the same size drives. The drives are SATA interface. I used two identical (same manufacturer, model and probably the same lot) 2TB drives in my configuration.
1895541
If you are set on Raid 1, it will limit you to 4 TB because the other drive is duplicating #1. If you go into your WD My Cloud you can change from Raid 1 and obtain full use of the aggregate 8 TB if that is what you want.
663716
Hi FYI I dont think that the unit will support a drive over 3TB. 2TB is the limit. But maybe the unit you get will You should make sure to check on that. mine does not. Sorry I cant answer you question I have never tried RAID with my units they are just dumb drives.
2235680
Nope, that's only possible if you use XRAID (let the NAS auto handle the RAID levels). If you manually configure it as RAID1 initially using FlexRAID, you don't get the option to convert it to a RAID5 when you add in another disk later. You'll need to use at least 3 HDD to start with RAID5.
1632889
I answered yes by accident... You CANNOT use smaller drives for 2 reasons. The first is that you can't add smaller volumes to a RAID array on the device and second, you can't expand an existing volume to the new device, you have to make a new volume.
843170
You can start with two drives and expand it as you get more drives. Furthermore if all bays are full then you can replace older smaller drives with bigger newer drives without losing any data.
800516
Can you run RAID that way? Id like to install 2 2TB drives, for large capacity RAID.
1570066
From everything I have read about Raid arrays, no to different sizes.... Yes to different manufactures (if they are compatable with each other) If you attempt to use multiple sizes, the smallest become the default and it may not work correctly. Different manufactures may or may not work depending upon who made the HHDs. In any case, I would not try either different manufactures or sizes. Mine worked perfectly with the same size and manufacture. Depending upon the RAID type you select, you could be taking the chance of losing all of your data, especially if you lose a HHD and the system tries to rebuild to a new one (different size and manufacture could gum up the works).
647148
yes can put any size drive in the bays that you'd like, but if you want them to be part of a raid, they have to be all of a matching gb size. I have 3 2tb drives set up as a raid, and a couple of randomly size drives as backups that aren't included in the raid. overall it's a very versatile piece of equipment.
993928
Update-I did have to put in 5 old, dummy drives to setup the Raid 5 on the new box & then put in my 5 drives, in order of course, & the Raid came right back up. I just happened to have 5 old drives to use. Otherwise, I don't think you can do it any other way.
1235419
The drives must be the same size and yes you can put only 4 drives in the NAS. In order to configure as a RAID 5 though you will need at least three drives. I used 5 drives and configured 4 of them as RAID5 leaving the 5th drive as a "hot spare".
506899
I started with one 2TB and have been running it for several months. Adding a second of another brand and size. It's flexible to do that. You can even put in 2.5's with a converter tray, or some people mix in SSD's as well. Pretty limitless. AND most use cases are hot swappable, meaning you can pull and add drives while running.
542427
What is a RAID? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID this a RAID? No, just the enclosure. You need a RAID controllerCan is fit a 3.5" Hard Drive? If so how many? No, only 2.5" with 5 / 7 / 9.5 height
2138930
I just wanted to add that RAID 1 means 2 3TB drives will show up as 3TB (not 6TB) as it is a "mirrored" solution (and what I would recommend). So the MAX capacity in that set up is 4TB.