TS-453Pro 4 single disks, want to change 1 - Procedure suggested?

[pablobasito]

As in the subject, I have a TS-453Pro with 4 single disks - no RAID at all. They are all "independent". I doesn't need security at all, just lot of space.

But, of course, now I'm in the situation that I have to change the older HDD. It's slightly smaller, and old.
There's a procedure that can save me time and money? I mean, right now I should:
- Manually backup the file externally (no enough space on the other 3 HDDs), let's say on a BRANDNEWHDD1.
- Then, I should remove the OLDHDD1 from the NAS.
- Then, I should put a BRANDNEWHDD2 in the NAS. Re-creating the folders, assign the permissions etc.
- Finally, I should transfer all the backup data from the BRANDNEWHDD1 to the BRANDNEWHDD2.

This is pretty inconvenient, and I need 2 new HDDs, ending with a non-used HDD.
When I'll have to do this in the future this will be a pain every time.

I tried to search for that in the forum, but I didn't find other topics about it. There's a sort of "HDD cloning" from the internal one to the new one attached temporarily on USB? Letting me doing the change with less problems?

[FSC830]

The pain of a non-raid configuration.
The system is actually distributed across all disks (and SSD - if any) in NAS.

A backup to the other internal disks is not a backup! With such kind of configuration and "lot of space" external backups are mandatory!
If the disk with the system volume is affected, a replacement is much more complicated!
If the disk does not contain the system volume, the way you mentioned above is to go.

Regards

[pablobasito]

It's pretty sad. I suppose that they could facilitate those kind of changes, using a special kind of transfer along the USB, that prepare the new HDD to be inserted in the NAS substituting the old one

Sure, Initially (many years ago) I had a RAID5 along the 4 HDDs, however, along with the loss of 1/4 of the space, I had the additional problem that, every time I wanted to gain some space, I had to change ALL the disks. Sure, it's easier, 'cause the RAID5 disks can be changed "on the fly", however it's a double waste of space.
In the end, the "4 independent drives" was a good choice for me, barred the difficulties of change a single drive.

PS: in a topic I found on reddit (r/qnap), a user said that the system is hosted on every drive, so if I remove the actual disk labeled "system disk" it shouldn't impact the NAS functionality. Is this true? From what I read in your reply, it doesn't...

[dolbyman]

The reply above already mentioned that the system RAID1s are on each disks, the system volume removal will result in loss of most installed apps and the shares that are located on that drive

[pablobasito]

the system RAID1s are on each disks

Excuse me, probably I don't understand your reply. In my setting, I have no RAIDs (so, also no RAID1s).
My concerns are about the removal of the disk that the system calls "System disk", and that it's in a "single drive" configuration.

EDIT: however, this is a problem I'll have to face further ahead. In my actual situation, I need to change a non-system disk, always in a non-RAID configuration.

[dolbyman]

Doesn't matter what config you run..the OS is on the disks in a spanning RAID1

And it's at this moment (running single disks on a NAS without a plan on failure or expansion) where poeple realize that this inconvenient parity loss of one drive, wasn't such a bad thing afterall .. happens very often around here

[pablobasito]

Doesn't matter what config you run..the OS is on the disks in a spanning RAID1

Ok, this is positive.

And it's at this moment ... where poeple realize that this inconvenient parity loss of one drive, wasn't such a bad thing afterall .. happens very often around here

Again, sorry if I don't grasp this phrase correctly: it seems sarcastic, but from what I understand the thing is good.
So, barred the (big) inconvenience to transfer the whole disk content into a temporary location*, change (any) disk
in a "independent HDDs" configuration isn't a big fuss.

* in a low-risk storage like the one I need, it's still more cheap to get a temporary HDD, from time to time, rather than change all 4 HDDs in a RAID5 configuration EVERY time I need a (slight?) improvement of the available space.

[dolbyman]

See .. if you have to transfer the content of the disks to an external location now, you are clearly lacking a plan for the event of a sudden drive failure (and other things like accidental or deliberate file deletion or alteration) where backups AFTER the fact are too late

There is plenty of people running single disks on their NAS and are well aware and prepared for the eventual hdd swap due to capacity growth or defect, but many people think a NAS is some sort of magical device that will protect the files no matter what (sooo many tears were shed in here over the years). So all I am saying is, be on top of it and either have backups at all times or just unimportant data on there

[pablobasito]

Sure, thanks for the advice about the backups. I'm really aware about my situation, but I can survive to a catastrophic failure (ie. no indispensable data in that NAS, all my important data are in different places and under backup). I'm really just need the service I wrote before, from that NAS: lot of space, zero security.
Simply, I'm sad for the work I need to do when I have to expand the space available. I mean, probably they can think a sort of "single HDD migration tool", but it's not a very popular request, I imagine.