Changing raid configuration from one to another

[kodiak211]

QNap TS-451+ with 4 bay array... I just bought a few new drives, 2, 2TB iron wolf drives, with an old , 2TB WD green drive that I'll be replacing soon with another 2TB iron wolf drive.

For the time being, I'm going to set these three drives up in Raid 0. And in the future, for the 4th bay, I'm thinking of buying a 6TB Iron wolf drive for Raid 1 configuration.

I'm wanting, at least 6TB's of space.

If i set it up in raid 0, and then later set it up in raid 1, will I lose any data during this process?

[dolbyman]

only path for raid migration is

single disk - > raid1
raid1 -> raid5
raid5 -> raid6

no other ways possible ...no downgrades

[kodiak211]

Not sure what you mean.

[kodiak211]

So I should set it up in raid 1, vs 0, if I want to add more drives?

[dolbyman]

meaning...there is no path from raid0 to raid1 without a complete loss of data (as it was not included in my list)

[dolbyman]

with raid1 you will only get 2TB of space ..as two drives are mirrored

so you would need two 6TB drives in raid1 to get the space you want

[P3R]

For the time being, I'm going to set these three drives up in Raid 0. And in the future, for the 4th bay, I'm thinking of buying a 6TB Iron wolf drive for Raid 1 configuration.

That's not possible. RAID 1 is only supported between 2 disks and then providing the usable storage capacity of only the smallest disk.

I'm wanting, at least 6TB's of space.

If so I would recommend 4*2 TB disks in RAID 5, 3*3 TB disks in RAID 5 or 2*6 TB disks in RAD 1.

If i set it up in raid 0, and then later set it up in raid 1, will I lose any data during this process?

RAID 0 is always a dead end. It can't be migrated into any other RAID configuration and it can't be expanded by replacing the disks with larger. Also as soon as any disk fail all data will be lost so it's a much more unreliable storage than even a single disk.

RAID 1 and RAID 5 can be migrated into other RAID configurations. RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 6 can be expanded by replacing all disks in the array to larger.

Experienced administrators like myself recommend RAID 1 or higher in the NAS.