How do you upgrade HDDs on a NAS server?

[Alex Franke]

I'm considering this little gem for a home file and print server: http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS210j/index.php (Anyone use it or a similar device?)

But here's what I don't quite get: Say I get a single 1TB drive for it now and start loading it up. Then later I want to add another 1TB drive and set them up with RAID1. Can add a second drive and set it up with an existing (data-filled) drive for RAID1, or do you have to reinitialize both drives?

Also, at some point I'd probably fill up the 1TB, so if I later wanted to upgrade it with larger drives, would I have to copy all the data down to a local computer and then copy back up? Or could I swap out one drive, let RAID1 do it's thing, then swap out the other, then increase the total size?

I suppose I could ask this on the synology forum, but I like you guys better.

[os1kne]

I'm sorry that I'm not any help, but I'm curious about these devices as well.

[Chris_B]

Upgrades and migration are the stickiest problems with storage devices. The short answer is that in most cases you need to copy the data to another device, swap (/upgrade) HW, and copy back. Sorry.

The longer answer is... longer.

I don't have any experience with Synology, but I have several similar devices from QNAP (single bay) and D-Link (dual bay). I started with the D-Link DNS-321, but prefer the QNAP because it is silent (no fan), has more richly featured software, and my older TS109 Pro II versions support NFS.

I learned the hard way that RAID does not protect from the *likeliest* cause of failure: me doing something stupid.
So I prefer to have separate physical copies. Several, actually, in opposite corners of the house. The QNAP devices handle automatic mirroring between themselves every night, but I can browse each one over the network individually.

Unless Synology is doing some unusual magic, generally the RAID level on the NAS device needs to be configured when initialized. On my DNS-321, if I want to create a 2-drive mirror, the system will re-format both drives, even if one is full of data.

However, one capability of the QNAP devices (and probably others) is support for external eSATA or USB drives, and the system can automatically sync an internal drive to the external one. This is specifically designed to back-up the main drive, but effectively is a local RAID-1 mirror.

If you really want to build a large and flexible single array, check out Microsoft's Windows Home Server. I don't use this, but for a Windows-only household it apparently is quite slick, and has extremely modest hardware requirements.

BTW, the best synchronization software I've found is SyncBack. This makes moving large amounts of data from my clients to the NAS (or to another client) very easy and hassle-free. The free version works fine, but the SE edition also handles open files extremely well. These guys write great software!

[Alex Franke]

Cool -- I just found some info here. Looks like some magic

Convert basic to RAID1: "The Synology Disk Station currently supports converting a Basic into a RAID-1 Volume. To briefly cover the procedure, if another disk is available in a Synology system, the Disk Station Manager will prompt the Administrator that the current Non-RAID Volume can be upgraded to the redundant Volume RAID-1." (Also RAID-1 to RAID-5, and reshaping RAID5 by adding disks -- of course the unit I'm looking at is only 2 disks, so only RAID-0/1.)

RAID1 to RAID5: "when a RAID-1 Volume can be converted to RAID-5, the "Change" button will be made available."

Disk capacity upgrades: "Synology system supports Redundant RAID Array disk-level expansion, where smaller disks can replaced with a larger disk."