N5200 Pro supports one drive?

[rpalmer68]

Hi,

I'm seriously looking at getting a N5200BR Pro but can really only afford one 1TB HDD at the moment.

Can I run the 5200 with 1 x 1TB HDD and then add another 1 or 2 later and expand it into a Raid 1 or Raid 5 array?

If so, which 1TB drive woud people recommend?

Thanks
Richard

[Funkstar]

running with a single drive in there isn't a problem.

You can migrate up to RAID-1, or RAID-5 when you add more drives without loosing data, although it is still recomended to back everything up anyway. I know it isn't always practical. I couldn't backup when I migrated from 2 drive RAID-1 to 3 drive RAID-5 then to 4 and 5 drives.

As for recomended drives, most should work without issue, although the only one on the Thecus approved drive list is the 1TB Hitachi Ultrastar.

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Sir,

Following link for your reference:

RAID Migration & RAID Expansion

N5200_N5200PRO_HDD_list_2008-04-11.pdf


Yvon

[peterfu]

Looking to the migration possibilites there is no way from one disk to more disks - seems the only useful option for You is to start with a minimum of 2 disks in RAID1 (that I would do in any way for security reasons) - loosing 1 TB of data in case of a HD fail is the risc with only 1 disk.
br
Peter

[rpalmer68]

I had a feeling one dive wouldn't be migratable

I'm really only using it at the moment to backup machines to, plus store my media library mp3 cache (original files are lossless) so don't really need the redundantcy yet... was just hoping to be able to migrate so I didn't have to rebuild the media cache or lose any old backups.

Oh well I guess I can copy them somewhere and then create the RAID array when I can afford another $700 for another two drives.

Cheers
Richard

[Funkstar]

Oh, ok. I always thought you could go from 1 drive with no-raid to a RIAD-1 mirror. Guess not though.

And having a single 1TB drive in there is no more risky than having a 1TB drive in a PC or external USB case and plenty of people just do that.

[MMansfeld]

Big wish for the next firmware release:

Would it be possible to have one or more drives just as true single drives with no RAID at all? (as JBOD of 1 drive is already RAID). Means no redundancy, no mapping/migrating/expansion issues, just bare EXT3 (with the possibility to drop the drives "standalone" in any Linux PC or if read-only is enough even a windows PC with the appropiate drivers)?