Expanding in DSM4

[schneider]

I have just got a new Synology DiskStation. It has DSM 4 on it.

I have attached two 3tb harddrives and set up Hybrid RAID. This was filled, so I grabbed a 1.5 Tb HD I had used to transfer data on to the NAS and plugged it in. I was expecting the Manage button to light up so I could use this to expand the volume size. This did not occur so I rebooted the NAS. It still didn't show up. The HD is currently in "Not intialized".

Is there something I need to do to intialize it before it is able to be added to the RAID?

Is there something I have done wrong or is this not something that can be done?

[HarryPotter]

About a million time easked and answered: YOU CAN NOT ADD A SMALLER HD TO A SHR VOLUME

[thomas_fogh]

What a nice way to answer. I bet it's not the millionth time he tries to do this...

I have the same problem. Just bought a DS212J and a 3TB disk. Installed it with SHR (it's the default).
Now I want to add the old disk from my old DS. It's a 1.5TB disk.
Maybe you should notify the user during the installation of this limitation to SHR!

[HarryPotter]

I really wonder what do you want to achieve by adding a 1.5 TB HD to a single HD 3 TB SHR volume.....

SHR on a 2 bay system is nothning else than a simnple RAID1. How do you want to mirror a 3 TB HD to a 1.5 HD?

[thomas_fogh]

I want to use the 2 disks as a single volume (RAID0) .
I thought that SHR would help me configure that. I thought SHR could be like any RAID setup.

[HarryPotter]

So it is not Synologys fault if you do not inform yourself about what SHR is and offers prior to set it up....

A RAID0 must ALWAYS be setup from scratch, no changes can be made. and a RAID0 with 1.5 TB + 3 TB gives you 2 x 1.5 TB = 3 TB, rest is lost. A JBOD would give you 4.5 TB, but has to be setup from scratch too.

But with your additional 1.5 TB HD you can setup a 2nd independent volume. Then you will have 2 volumes, the existing at 3 TB and the new one with 1.5 TB.

[thomas_fogh]

I did read your wiki:

The SHR is an automated RAID Management system, designed to meet the needs of easy deployment of a storage volume. The SHR is designed to meet the needs for those users who do not care or do not want to know what are the finer aspects of the various RAID-levels which are currently supported on the DiskStation, and would like to use the SHR to handle RAID management, storage expansion and maximize storage capability.

I set up 2 volumes, but I would prefer 1.

[HarryPotter]

but I would prefer 1.

As I said, then you have to backup your data, remove both volumes and create a JBOD volume which gives you max. size available.

[maxxfi]

I did read your wiki:

The SHR is an automated RAID Management system, designed to meet the needs of easy deployment of a storage volume. The SHR is designed to meet the needs for those users who do not care or do not want to know what are the finer aspects of the various RAID-levels which are currently supported on the DiskStation, and would like to use the SHR to handle RAID management, storage expansion and maximize storage capability.

If you continue to read to the next sentence, it also says:

The SHR allows for 1-disk worth of redundancy - meaning that the SHR volume can suffer the lost of one disk, and the data volume will still be available for use.

That is, SHR can take the place of RAID 1 / RAID 5 (where you have redundant disks), but not RAID 0 or JBOD. Those have to be configured separately.

[schneider]

Thanks for the reply... I did try searching and reading the documents and no where in the documentation does it talk about this limitation... (I come from the Drobo world where this is possible) After reading review I thought this was a better option... If I install the 1.5 TB drive into Bay 4 and then when I have the cash buy a third 3 TB driver throw that into bay 3 will I be able to transfer quickly from one volume to the other? I just need a step between as I have made the first big investment and need a little recovery time.

Please update the help file to reflect this limitation so you can save answering the question one million and one times...

[HarryPotter]

Yes it is no problem moving files from one to the other volume. It can be done using File Station or with the built in "local backup" utility.