Synology and mixed drive sizes

[Enquiries]

Hi, thanks for the great videos and information provided via YouTube.

Am on the cusp of buying a synolgy nas. Budget does not permit me to fully populate each bay from day one so that will occur in stages. To start I will be using what I have already so the question is....

If I install a mix of drives (1x 12TB & 2 x 8TB drives) I know that I can create a raid 5 array based on the smallest drives (8TB). That would in effect leave 4TB. unused on the 14TB drive. Can I use this 4TB in any way, a separate pool, logical drive or what?
Hope that makes sense.

Thank you
/Alan

[ed]

If you choose to create a RAID array with mixed-sized drives, such as 1x 12TB and 2x 8TB drives, the RAID configuration will indeed utilize the smallest drive size for parity (RAID 5 in this case, using 8TB drives). However, any excess capacity on the larger drives that exceeds the smallest drive size cannot be utilized within the RAID array itself.

To maximize the use of the 12TB drive's full capacity, you would need to consider setting it up separately, outside of the RAID array. This can be done in JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) or Basic mode, which would provide you with the full 12TB of usable space but without the data protection benefits of RAID.