N3200 Expand/Replace

[rwithers]

I have a N3200 Unit that I am looking to expand/replace drives on. Currently I am running 3 500GB drives in a raid 5 configuration. I am running out of space so I am looking to expand. What I have come up with so far is the following:
Buy 3 1 TB drives
Pull the third drive from the array and insert the new 1TB drive
Hopefully there is a way to keep this drive from rebuilding into the array
Then copy all data over to the 1TB drive.
Once this is complete remove the other 2 500GB drives and insert a two new 1TB drives the problem I am running into is that you need at least 3 drives to build a raid 5 system. Well my third drive will already have data on it and if it is added to an array I am pretty sure it will loose everything on there.

Is there any easier way to go about this?

Can I swap each drive one at a time and then expand the array on this system? I have read you can do something similar on other Thecus systems but have not seen anything in relation to the 3200.

Any help/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Thecus - Ivan]

Dear rwithers,

Please see below steps you have to follow to expand your HDD space:

1. Replace one drive and let the system rebuild the drive for you, once the first one
is done, you move on to the next one, one at the time.

2. After all drives have been replaced to 1 TB, you must do a RAID migration.
click on the RAID migration button and select RAID 5.

3. After the migration process has been completed, you must do a RAID expansion, once
completed, You will have 2TB of HDD space and RAID 5.

_____________________________

Official Thecus Support Representative