Starting with only one HD [merged thread]

[Lennyz]

So if I understand it correctly.

I have a 211+. And two drives of 1tb and 1,5 tb.

If I use SHR then I have a total amount of 1tb mirrored. And a remaining section of 500gb which is not mirrored?

Or am I making a mistake and the remaining 500gb is just lost?

[HarryPotter]

Exaclty, the remainnig 500 GB are lost.

[indelible]

i hope hd prices drop soon so i can add a second hd

[The Void]

Hello,
I am new to this and I am planning to purchase a DS212j. Due to the high prices of hard drives at the time my plan is to use an old 500GB disk for now. In the future I want to use two 2TB disks in Raid1. My question is if it is possible (and easy) to go from one 500GB disk to two 2TB disks without loosing the data I will store on the old disk?

[HarryPotter]

Yes this is possible, no problem.

[penskefile]

This morning I just added a second 2TB drive to my DS212j and the device just finished a 4-5 hour process.

Based on everything I had read, I went with the SHR configuration for this second drive as I am looking for simple redundancy on my original 2TB. I have used about 251GB of the available 1.79TB on the original drive.

Is there anything else I need to do now - do I have redundancy in place? For instance, if the first drive were to fail right now, is the data present on the second drive or is there another process I need to kick off to do this?

If not - then kudos to Synology because this was very easy.

My log from today reads:

Information 2012/04/14 15:34:52 admin User [admin] logged in from [XXX.XXX.X.XXX]
Information 2012/04/14 15:21:27 SYSTEM System successfully checked consistency of System Volume [Swap].
Information 2012/04/14 15:20:58 admin System successfully expanded [Volume 1] with disk [2].
Information 2012/04/14 14:35:05 admin User [admin] logged in from [XXX.XXX.X.XXX]
Information 2012/04/14 07:39:50 SYSTEM System successfully checked consistency of System Volume [Root].
Information 2012/04/14 07:39:06 admin System starts to expand [Volume 1] with disk [2].
Information 2012/04/14 07:35:19 admin User [admin] logged in from [XXX.XXX.X.XXX]

[HarryPotter]

Is there anything else I need to do now - do I have redundancy in place?

No there is nothing else to do. You have now a mirrored volume and adisk may crash wthout affecting your data.

[kewl1]

I just got a DS1512+. So far I have put in 1 x 2 TB WD Black HD and transferred files onto it. It could be half full.
1) I think I read that if you want to keep things simple or don't want to be bothered learning about RAID than you can just add more drives and it will automatically create the SHR RAID. Does that sound correct? I didn't actually tell it to create anything so maybe there is no RAID yet? I just put in a drive and added files
2) Does this mean that it has already set up this first drive for SHR RAID?
3) So is it now already too late to add smaller drives? I may have jumped the gun here by starting with one of my largest drives.

[HarryPotter]

1) yes, correct
2) if you didnt choose anything else, you probably already have an SHR volume with no disk redundancy. But even if not, it doesnt matter, if you expand it with additional disks, it will be converted anyway without data loss.
3) not really. You could add a smaller HD and create a new volume with it instead of expanding the old one. Then move data from old to new volume, delete old volume and add the old disk to the new volume.

[kewl1]

Fantastic. Thanks very much. That is just what I was looking for. I find some of this to be confusing as this is my first NAS and I am trying to be very careful because I am dealing with home movies. All of the years of movies are backed up onto stacks of DVDs but I still don't want to lose the copies on hard drives because they are so much easier to work with.

[twin2]

Hi. I have just got a new DS212+ going setting up with DSM4.0. Installed a new 3TB drive and followed defaults with result I have a single SHR volume (without data protection). Copied all my files from an identical storage drive in my PC.

My target is a mirrored drive (I assumed of SHR), and expected to be given the option to do so when I installed the 2nd drive into the diskstation.
I have tried this via create a volume and manage.
+ Create (Quick) results in a separate new SHR (without data protection) and subsequently all buttons greyed out - except remove.
+ Manage results in a single bigger volume, with no further options.
+ Create Custom, then Single Volume on RAID, gives only RAID option = Basic (without data protection)
+ Create Custom, then Multiple Volumes on RAID, then create new disk group, gives 2 RAID options = Basic (without data protection), AND SHR (WITH data protection).

At this stage I'm reluctant to apply that SHR (WITH data protection), as it implies I'm creating a 2nd volume, and I really don't want to risk the data on the first volume. Is this what I should do?

What is correct way to reach a mirrored disk situation without loss of my data on first disk?

Thanks

[maxxfi]

@twin2: It should be your option #2. Plug the new disk, open the Storage Manager and select the existing volume, and click Manage. It will "expand the volume" which, for a 1-disk -> 2-disks SHR transition means adding a mirror (without obviously losing current data on the old disk), not increasing storage capacity.

[twin2]

"expand the volume" which, for a 1-disk -> 2-disks SHR transition means adding a mirror (without obviously losing current data on the old disk), not increasing storage capacity.

maxxfi, thank you.
This has indeed worked. It is now busy checking parity, for the next several hours.
I was sure I had tried that already, resulting in a single volume and two unmirrored disks.

[skwakk]

I have a two-bay DS212 and started with one drive as SHR (no redundancy obviously). When I add a second drive of equal or greater capacity, if I choose not to have redundancy can I keep the drives as separate SHR (no protection) disks to take advantage of the space? or would it be better to reformat them as 'basic'?

Is there a benefit (or harm) to leaving them as two separate SHR disks…let's say, would it help if in the future I upgrade to a 4 bay unit and finally choose SHR with protection…do I simply add two additional drives on the 4 bay and carry my old data on the old disks intact or do I need to start from scratch again (backup everything, reformat all 4 drives as SHR and copy back my data)?

[maxxfi]

Yes, you can have two SHR 1-disk volumes, there is no advantage/disadvantage compared to 'basic' volumes during usage, and if you later decide to expand it should make it easy to add a mirroring disk.