Can you install drives that already have data on them, or do you have to use blank drives? I want to consolidate drives from separate enclosures.
1687481
I put in a drive with data on it and windows wouldn't recognize it unless I formatted it first. Works fine after formatting, but I had to backup all of my data before using the drive.
1687482
No, this isn't a RAID (although there is a version of this that does support RAID). I bought it as a replacement for a couple of hard drive docks that were giving me trouble and it worked perfectly and other than Windows having to re-recognize the drives Windows never even made a blip.
1687483
I was able to use previously formatted drives as well as unformatted drives. Though, I had many issues with drives just randomly dropping connection.
1687484
Ronald, I have done both copied smaller drives to bigger 1GB to 3GB I have 2 of these enclosures and love them
1239947
With the Synology RAID option you can start with the 3TB drives and add larger ones later. You just can't anything of smaller size than the drives used to create the array.
330260
I was just able to partition a drive and load it on both computers. I've been useing a lot of answers from the internet for loading and moveing stuff around.
1982101
Inside the enclosure there are two (2) independent hardisks. RAID 1 redundancy works just as expected, with one drive mirroring the other. It hasn't happened to me yet, but the literature says that in case of a crash. you simply replace the bad drive with a new one and the device will sync itself up, automatically. If the drive is under warranty, you call WD and they'll ship you a replacement drive. The case is designed so that the user can replace the drive easily. So, it's not marketing BS. It works as expected.
1032198
I added five drives and I had no problem. I did make sure that the drives I added were the same size as the existing drives in the NAS
1303012
If the 2 drives are individual and not set up in a raid, they will be read by this enclosure. Personally I have discontinued external enclosures and gone to bare drives with 2 of the dual docks. Cheaper and much easier stacking bare drives than a bunch of external enclosures cabled up. You can get plastic enclosures to store the hard drives.
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.
962629
I have 3 TB drives in a raid 5 configuration. No issues yet. We use it primarily for time machine backups.
1684879
I'd STRONGLY recommend against using an old drive in the device. By using one not from Synology's list, you risk poor performance. It would be a drag to set it up and then have slow performance. Don't use an old drive -- they all have a maximum life, and yours could be close to the end and you would never know. Since you're putting it in a 1-bay enclosure with no redundancy, you want to install the most reliable disk you can.
31544
will I loose all my data that is already on the 4GB, or is this an additional drive? I tried to use the Seagate 1TB external Computer drive, but it wouldn't work.
1554223
It shows up as two physical drives 0 and 1 at 1 TB ea, further partitioned into 500 GB ea C-D-E-F. Haven't pulled it apart to see if in fact they are separate drives. 100% screaming machine but the drives are probably 75% screaming.
1175066
No. They don't see each other's drives. what you can do is to create an array on each of them and then in the OS use them as a single drive.
68977
You have to add at least one drive in order for the unit to work. My unit is running on 4 drives of 2TB each for a total of 8TB. I run in raid 5 which allows all drives to be mirrors of each other. If one drive fails for any reason you can simply replace it with another drive and all of your data will automatically copy from one to the other. As a minimum you need three drives to run raid 5 but like I said, I'm running 4 drives. When you start up the unit it walks you through everything you want to do with it. It is very user friendly. Hope this helps.
2235683
Using X-RAID is the only way to make that work. But you are limited to 1 volume, if you want more than 1 volume you would turn off X-RAID but you cant go back without reformatting your drives. X-RAID will manage your redundancy
1434286
Greetings,Great question!Yes, absolutely. The two drive types can be installed and utilized in conjunction with one another.Best regards,MITXPC
1423746
If you purchase the diskless version, you will need to purchase and install storage for this device in the form of a standard 3.5 in. SATA internal PC hard drive. You can add up to two drives. You can attach your USB drive to this device for redundant back up of the device in case the disk(s) or system should ever fail.
735279
I'm only using the one drive it came with right now. It might have software raid. You can ask the seller via their support link at deepdiscountservers.com.