(SOLVED) Adding additional drives over time

[bobbannerman]

Hi,

Although I realise this question may/may not have been asked a million times over I'm struggling to find a post asking this exact question.

If I purchase a 5010 enclosure and populate it in the interim with just 3 drives (I believe the minimum required for RAID 5) then can I follow this up every now and again when I have the spare money to pop another drive in now and then?

Will this be too much of a hassle will it render the thing useless? I ask because I cannot afford to buy a fully populated enclosure and want to keep the same form factor to site neatly on top of my existing 608t. Has anybody done this, can it be done?

thank you in advance

[MikeG.6.5]

These NASes are designed to do just that. As you add in another drive, you go to Storage Manager in the ADM and can either make a new volume, (not entirely what you are asking) or add the new drive to the existing volume.

Keep in mind, to make the option to add in the new drive into the existing volume, extending the volume, the new drive needs to be the same size as the existing drives. If you want to replace the existing drives with those of higher capacity, you can do the same thing, but you need to have all of the disks on hand to start this process.

So, 3 drives in the system already. 3x3TB. Want to add a fourth, put it in, go to Storage Manager and add the disk. the volume becomes 4x3TB, or roughly 9TB total storage. (A little less than that, but close.)

If you want to replace the existing 3x3TB with 3x6TB, take out the drive in bay 3, put in the new 6TB, and follow the prompts in Storage Manager. Then do the same for the drive in bay 2, and then bay 1. Then, the last step is to extend the volume to the new size. Remember, doing this can take a WHILE... As in several days to upgrade the drives and extend the size to the new capacity.

[bobbannerman]

Thank you Mike for your reply much appreciated I was indeed looking to add additional drives of them same type over time.

I think I'll take the plunge and secure another asustor NAS

Thanks again!

Bob