Start with one drive, expand later

norse · Post by **norse** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:26 pm

Hi.

I'm looking to buy a 604T device and want to use the new WD RED 4TB drives with it. The only thing is that I can't afford to buy both the NAS and four drives at the very same time. My question is:

Can I start out with one new WD RED 4TB drive and expand with the other drives later? Want to end up with 4x WD RED 4TB in RAID5 in the end. And yes, I know I will have NO protection to start with(JBOD) if possible at all.

Thanks for answering. The device looks great, really looking forward to join your community.

Gunthor · Post by **Gunthor** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 2:22 am

Hi norse,
And "Welcome" to the forum. Yes you can start with just one drive and expand later. I started for example with two drives (new WD RED 3GB - less expensive than the 4GB version) in Raid 1 mode - but before I got them I tested with just ONE small drive.
However, I recommend to set up your Backups asap - in case of emergency

. Kindly note that a future switch to a different Raid mode (after purchasing all 4 drives) is possible but users reported here that depending on the amount of data this takes quite some time...

norse · Post by **norse** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:16 pm

Thanks. I will buy more discs within weeks, but I can't start out with them.

My plan:
Start 1 disc.
After a month: 1 more --> RAID 1
After two months: 1 more --> RAID 5
And the last disk to compliment the RAID 5.

Sound like a decent idea?

Gunthor · Post by **Gunthor** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:05 pm

The Raid 1 --> 5 switch is the most time consuming action. So if you intend to run your Raid 5 based on 3 disks for only ~2 months before adding your last hdd to your volume, I would wait with the Raid 1 --> 5 action until you have all 4 drives. You could define the third hdd as a spare drive until you purchase the last one.

Advantage: Only one time cosuming operation.
Disadvantage: The Raid 1 performance on 2 drives is slower than the Raid 5 performance on 3 drives. You'd have to live with that for the ~2 months.

norse · Post by **norse** » Thu Sep 26, 2013 10:14 pm

Thanks mate! Will do as you advised and wait to do the switch to RAID 5 till I'll have all the four drives. Didn't know I could do 2x4TB in RAID1 have 1 drive in spare mode, sound like a good solution.

Really looking forward to kill my old high power consuming windows server now

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Start with one drive, expand later

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