growing from 2 single disks

[mariowinco]

I have an AS304T, two single disks. In the future I could buy another two disks and "go RAID".

Would I be able to copy the content of my disks into the new ones using just my Asustor? Ie: install the two new disks in RAID and then copy from the singles to the RAID and then adding the two disks?

Tx

[orion]

The answer is yes. You can add one disk and do RAID migration with your volume 1. You will got RAID-1 configuration. You can then add the second disk to migrate to RAID-5. After expand the volume 1 size, you can move your volume 2 data to volume 1. Destroy volume 2 and add this empty disk to volume 1. You will have 4 disks in RAID-5 configuration. However, as I know, it will take several days to complete the operation. Good thing is that you can still access your data during migration.

I found the information below that is much useful.
http://download.asustor.com/college/en/ ... ansion.pdf

[mariowinco]

Orion

tx for your answer.

Understood that I can do: orig-single-volume1 + new-empty -> RAID1 as step 1.

What's not so clear is that, after I have RAID1 with two(or three) disks I will be able to COPY the content in orig-single-volume2 into the RAID thing. Is the addition "non destructive" also for this second step?

[orion]

Ok, RAID-1 is mirror protection which means your data is stored to these 2 disk at the same time. So you won't lose your data if there is one disk failure. However it means that your available size does not grow up. That's why you might not be able to COPY your contents in orig-single-volume2 to the new RAID-1.

Yes, the second step is non-destructive. After you migrate to 3-disk-RAID-5 and expand the size, you should have bigger size (2 * disk space). You can then copy your orig-single-volume2 contents to the RAID-5 volume. After that, you can migrate to 4-disk-RAID-5. You will have 3 times of single disk size.

[mariowinco]

side question: could I have, in an Asustor 304T have the following

Raid 0 (or 1 or 5)
volume 1
volume 2
volume 3

and
volume 4 as "single disk"

tx for your help

[Auberon2k]

If I understand what you are asking correctly the answer is no.
You cannot migrate from single disk to RAID0 (stripe) only from Single to RAID1 (2 disk mirror) and then up from there (ie, 3 disk RAID 5, 4 DIsk RAID 5)
It is possible to have in your 304T:
Volume 1 - RAID 0 or 5 (3 physical disks)
and
Volume 2 - Single Disk

Each Single Disk or RAID grouping is a Volume, having three disks in RAID does not provide 3 volumes.

What orion was suggesting was taking your two single disks, add a third disk. migrate SingleVol1 to include the new disk as MirrorVol1, remember this step adds NO space/capacity to the NAS, just redundancy for Vol1. The next step varies a bit:
a) Move data off SingleVol2 either to MirrorVol1 if space permits or externally. Kill SingleVol2, add new empty disk to migrate MirrorVol1 to RAID5Vol1 (RAID5 3-disk)
or
b) Add a 4th disk to the 304. Add to MirrorVol1 (2 disks) migrating it to RAID5Vol1 (3 disk). Internally move data from SingleVol2 to RAID5Vol1. Kill SingleVol2, add to RAID5Vol1 extending it to 4 disks

[Forcebringer]

That sound pretty complicated.
I just think about buying the AS-204TE and having 2 disc Raid 1 for the start.
Than later on moving to 4 discs either Raid 5 or staying at Raid 1.

From the S. company NAS I understood from their Website that this movement is easy and done automatically (just click the button "migrate")
It seems moving from Raid1 to 0 is no problem from Raid0/1 to Raid 5 is no problem (adding drives) and a single button action as long as there is enough space.

Wouldnt it work the same here?
Thx

[mariowinco]

As far as I've seen there is NO upgrade path from Raid 0. What starts 0, 0 stays. My mistake if I've read it wrong!

[Kapitein Haak]

Hello Mariowinco,

You are correct that there is no upgrade path for RAID-0 (consisting of 2 or more disks). For your first post I gather that you currently have two single disk volumes (Volume1 and Volume2). These would be upgradable to RAID-5 as Orion described in his post.

Best regards,
Kapitein Haak.