Running without RAID

[brettbert]

I have a TS-253 PRO. Id like to run this without Raid. I would just like to use it for a mass network storage device. Is this possible?
I can't seem to find a setting to be able to do this.
Any help is appreciated

[Washed_Out]

You would use JBOD. If one drive fails, you may be able to recover information from the other drive. If you're not using redundancy why not use raid0 for the performance gain? You need a backup in either case.

[brettbert]

Do you know how I can select Raid0 on it?

[Washed_Out]

Access QTS via a web browser with the 2 disks in the NAS. Go to storage manager > Click “New Storage Pool”, select disks and a RAID group type, and click “Apply” to create new storage pools. You want to select raid 0 as the raid group type. After that you should be good to go. This will delete anything that is on the drives.

[kherr4377]

Whether you use JBOD or Raid0, if one drive fails .... everything is gone. Only Raid 1, 10, 5 or 6 has redundancy.

[brettbert]

Thank you. Im sure when I first set it up I looked for a raid 0 option but didnt notice it. I shall try it again tonight. I know there is no redundancy with this but that is fine for what I am using this for. Storage capacity is what is required. If I loose information on this set of discs doesnt matter. Highly sensitive information is stored elsewhere. If I have 4 3TB drives it gives me 12TB. If I have it in Raid 5 it will give me 9TB wont it? Maybe thats not as bad as i thought!

[P3R]

Im sure when I first set it up I looked for a raid 0 option but didnt notice it.

Maybe because it's a disk configuration that Qnap don't wan't to encourage, as few users really understands the consequences of it?

I know there is no redundancy with this but that is fine for what I am using this for.

Okay, remember that you said this when either of the four disks fails and you need to reinstall the complete NAS from scratch...

If I have 4 3TB drives it gives me 12TB.

Correct, sort of. It's actually more like 10.8 TB usable storage.

If I have it in Raid 5 it will give me 9TB wont it?

Correct, sort of. It's actually more like 8.1 TB usable storage.

Edit: I can't read properly sometimes so unfortunately my incorrect previous answer was based on 4 TB disks, not the 3 TB disks that was asked about. I have now edited my post to be correct for 3 TB disks. I'm very sorry about that mistake.

[MrVideo]

If I have 4 3TB drives it gives me 12TB. If I have it in Raid 5 it will give me 9TB wont it? Maybe thats not as bad as i thought!

You have a 253, which can only have two drives. Where would you put the other two?

[brettbert]

Sorry I have a TS-453 Pro 4 disk unit
I will just run Raid 5 Take the loss of the storage.

[browellm]

You could just run them as individual disks, rather than any form of RAID. I do this with a TS-212 that I just use as a backup target for my main TS-451. That way, if an individual drive fails, I don't lose everything as I would running JBOD. I just map the backup shares to the relevant volumes to spread the utilisation across the two volumes.

[P3R]

You could just run them as individual disks, rather than any form of RAID.

If the first single disk volume fails the whole NAS will become unavailable. Any other single disk volumes then cannot be reused in the NAS without reinitialization and loss of data.

The only way to access data on the additional single disk volumes that I'm aware of would be to mount it in a computer able to read the ext4 file system.

Each additional single disk volume means more administration with spreading the data over all volumes.

[browellm]

You could just run them as individual disks, rather than any form of RAID.

If the first single disk volume fails the whole NAS will become unavailable. Any other single disk volumes then cannot be reused in the NAS without reinitialization and loss of data.

The only way to access data on the additional single disk volumes that I'm aware of would be to mount it in a computer able to read the ext4 file system.

Each additional single disk volume means more administration with spreading the data over all volumes.

Appreciate that, but as this NAS acts purely as backup (really just 2x2TB USB disks but on the network), the ability to extract a disk and place it in a USB dock to recover the files is better than nothing.

The extra admin is marginal for me, because I'm only backing up three shares and each fits on a single volume. I do understand it's not going to be that simple for some.

[P3R]

Appreciate that, but as this NAS acts purely as backup (really just 2x2TB USB disks but on the network), the ability to extract a disk and place it in a USB dock to recover the files is better than nothing.

Yes as long as one is aware of and accept the consequences, it's a perfectly valid configuration. Especially for a pure backup destination.

I do understand it's not going to be that simple for some.

Agreed, two single disk volumes is probably okay to manage for most people but the OP would have four of them to juggle. In no way impossible of course but more work.