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NAS beginner

G

goldfronts1

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
31
3
I am interested in buying a NAS enclosure 4bay ASUSTOR. The problem is that I have three 3TB usb external hdds. I would like to open them up and use them in the bays, but I'm not sure if this will wipe out whatever data I already have on the drives (forced to reformat drives). How does one incorporate drives that already have data on them to the NAS enclosure?

Thanks
 
Better to buy new bare drives for the NAS and use the external as backups for the NAS. Most require reformatting to use internally.
 
Additionally, if the drives you had in the individual enclosures came in the enclosures then removing them from the enclosures would certainly void the warranty of the drives that were inside the enclosure. It might not matter to you but it is worth mentioning.
 
glenthompson said:
Yep. That way you have two copies. Backups are good.
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Thanks

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brand said:
Additionally, if the drives you had in the individual enclosures came in the enclosures then removing them from the enclosures would certainly void the warranty of the drives that were inside the enclosure. It might not matter to you but it is worth mentioning.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah good point. Thanks
 
You should buy new drives of the same type and make sure you get a drive recommended for your enclosure. I would also buy a spare drive at the same time to have on hand in case you need one. Its not a good feeling to have a raid array in need of a replacement drive while you wait for one to be shipped.

When you set it up the first time you might want to copy a few files to see how it performs and then break the array (remove a drive) and go through the rebuild process with your spare drive to make sure you know what you are going to do if the day arrives the you need to do it for real. You will also get some feel for the rebuild time which can be long.

You should be aware that it will probable take a long time to initialize the raid array for the first time and also if you have to replace a failed drive. If your array offers a quick setup of the array don’t use it. Let the drives get a full test. The array build times are dependent on the processor used in the enclosure with faster processors giving you quicker times.
 
ron123 said:
You should buy new drives of the same type and make sure you get a drive recommended for your enclosure. I would also buy a spare drive at the same time to have on hand in case you need one. Its not a good feeling to have a raid array in need of a replacement drive while you wait for one to be shipped.

When you set it up the first time you might want to copy a few files to see how it performs and then break the array (remove a drive) and go through the rebuild process with your spare drive to make sure you know what you are going to do if the day arrives the you need to do it for real. You will also get some feel for the rebuild time which can be long.

You should be aware that it will probable take a long time to initialize the raid array for the first time and also if you have to replace a failed drive. If your array offers a quick setup of the array don’t use it. Let the drives get a full test. The array build times are dependent on the processor used in the enclosure with faster processors giving you quicker times.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
goldfronts1 said:
NAS enclosure...I'm not sure if this will wipe out whatever data I already have on the drives (forced to reformat drives).
Click to expand...
Drives installed in a NAS enclosure with any kind of RAID system will absolutely get reformatted and all data will be lost.

It may just be possible that some NAS units may leave the data alone on the disks if they are set up with JBOD (non - RAID, individual disk volumes) but I assume that most would reformat even in that scenario.
 
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