Process for re-using HDD

[box]

Hello everyone

New member here with a question about re-use of HDD


Situation is I have upgraded to a 4bay 918+ from a 2 bay 214 Play

For a number of reasons the migration route ended up being an old school copy -the 214 has not been used for anything fancy so I just needed to move the data across and I duplicated the folder structure albeit under a new admin/user account etc

So I now have a 918+ with 2 new 4Tb drives in SHR and the same data as the 214 Play which still has the old 4Tb drives also in SHR

The drives in the 214 are only about a year old and SMART testing OK so I want to add them to the 918+ as a 3rd and 4th drive 

My question is how can I re-use them.  Can I just remove them one by one from the 214 and insert them into the 918+ without doing anything first?

Would the 918 will see each as a new drive and will reformat them and then add them to the SHR so it effectively goes from a mirrored RAID 1 to RAID5?

As they are currently in an SHR array, albeit a mirror, is that going to be a problem in the new NAS?

I have searched for an answer without success and Google etc only really deals with data migration, not re-use of hard disks that were in an array

Thanks in advance

[ed]

Welcome to the NAS community! It's great to see you looking to repurpose your HDDs for your new setup. You're on the right track with your plan, but let's walk through the process to ensure everything goes smoothly.

First off, yes, you can indeed remove the drives from your 214 Play one by one and insert them into your 918+. When you do this, the 918+ will recognize them as new drives and prompt you to add them to your storage pool. During this process, the NAS will automatically format and integrate the drives into your SHR array.

Since your drives are currently in an SHR array (even though it's a mirror), there shouldn't be any issues with transitioning them to your new NAS. SHR is designed to be flexible and accommodate changes in drive configurations, so moving from RAID 1 to RAID 5 should work seamlessly.

Just make sure to double-check compatibility and ensure that all data is safely backed up before making any changes. Once you've inserted the drives into your 918+ and added them to your storage pool, you'll have additional capacity to play with!

[box]

Welcome to the NAS community! It's great to see you looking to repurpose your HDDs for your new setup. You're on the right track with your plan, but let's walk through the process to ensure everything goes smoothly.

First off, yes, you can indeed remove the drives from your 214 Play one by one and insert them into your 918+. When you do this, the 918+ will recognize them as new drives and prompt you to add them to your storage pool. During this process, the NAS will automatically format and integrate the drives into your SHR array.

Since your drives are currently in an SHR array (even though it's a mirror), there shouldn't be any issues with transitioning them to your new NAS. SHR is designed to be flexible and accommodate changes in drive configurations, so moving from RAID 1 to RAID 5 should work seamlessly.

Just make sure to double-check compatibility and ensure that all data is safely backed up before making any changes. Once you've inserted the drives into your 918+ and added them to your storage pool, you'll have additional capacity to play with!

Many thanks for a succinct and unambiguous reply!

I thought this was the case but wasn't brave enough to do it without someone more knowledgeable confirming

As soon as have finished my online backup I will grow the 918+ array with the old drives from my 214 Play

Thanks again

[box]

Welcome to the NAS community! It's great to see you looking to repurpose your HDDs for your new setup. You're on the right track with your plan, but let's walk through the process to ensure everything goes smoothly.

First off, yes, you can indeed remove the drives from your 214 Play one by one and insert them into your 918+. When you do this, the 918+ will recognize them as new drives and prompt you to add them to your storage pool. During this process, the NAS will automatically format and integrate the drives into your SHR array.

Since your drives are currently in an SHR array (even though it's a mirror), there shouldn't be any issues with transitioning them to your new NAS. SHR is designed to be flexible and accommodate changes in drive configurations, so moving from RAID 1 to RAID 5 should work seamlessly.

Just make sure to double-check compatibility and ensure that all data is safely backed up before making any changes. Once you've inserted the drives into your 918+ and added them to your storage pool, you'll have additional capacity to play with!

Many thanks for a succinct and unambiguous reply!

I thought this was the case but wasn't brave enough to do it without someone more knowledgeable confirming

As soon as have finished my online backup I will grow the 918+ array with the old drives from my 214 Play

Thanks again

Just a quick note for anyone else with the same situation

Added each drive in turn. DSM noted the existence of a storage pool on each drive and checked that I was sure and warned about data deletion.  Added to the pool with no issues and more quickly than DSM predicted

Thanks again