Migration from single drive to RAID5 - how?

[ringeraja]

First, hello to everybody.

I planning upgrade from TS-219 to TS-431, so need advice how to do this, without loosing data.
First, I have TS-219 with 2 x 6TB WD Red, single drive setup - each drive is independent
I want to build RAID5 with 2 more WD Red 6TB, but without loosing any data.

Is it possible?
I read few articles from qnap web page, but still don't know how to act.

So, as you see, I need all help you can get

[pwilson]

First, hello to everybody.

I planning upgrade from TS-219 to TS-431, so need advice how to do this, without loosing data.
First, I have TS-219 with 2 x 6TB WD Red, single drive setup - each drive is independent
I want to build RAID5 with 2 more WD Red 6TB, but without loosing any data.

Is it possible?
I read few articles from qnap web page, but still don't know how to act.

So, as you see, I need all help you can get

Check out the instructions for Online RAID Level Migration in the fine manual.

[ringeraja]

Thanks, I see there is a possibility to do this, without loosing data.
If I understand correctly, first I have to put 2 new drives in position 1 & 2 and build RAID1.
Then, put one of my single disk in position 3 and copy all data to RAID1 volume.
After this, I have to erase all data from 3rd disk and migrate from RAID1 to RAID5.
At the end, I have to put second disk with data, copy to RAID5 volume, erase and add 4th disk to RAID5.

One thing... As I see, max volume size is 16TB, so I have to build 2 or more volumes. Is that right?
And when to build this 2 or more volumes. When I build RAID1 or when I build RAID5?

[pwilson]

Read it again. You can start with your single drive, and add additional drives, expanding it out to a RAID5 volume. Please follow the steps listed in the manual, using the hyperlink I already provided to get to the correct section of the manual.

[ringeraja]

Note:
• If you have a hot spare drive set up in a RAID configuration, remember to manually remove that drive before expanding a RAID Volume or adding a drive to that volume.
• Starting with QTS 4.1.1, the maximum volume capacity supported for online RAID capacity expansion in ARM-based NAS models is 16TB. For previous versions, the maximum volume capacity supported is 8TB.


Does this mean that is useless for me to build RAID5 with 4 x 6TB, because I will not have possibility to use more than 16TB ?