Upgrade raid 5 to raid 6 and increase capacity

[ruscat]

I have a TS-563 NAS with five 2Tb drives configured as raid 5 (no spare). I want to increase storage capacity using five 4TB drives and at the same time upgrade the raid array from raid 5 to raid 6. What's the best way for me to safely and efficiently accomplish this task?

[dolbyman]

you cannot do that ..raid5 to 6 conversion can only be done by adding another drive..you have all bays already in use

you need to start that volume from scratch in raid6 (or stay with raid5)

[ruscat]

Thanks for your reply. That’s what I thought. If I back everything up to an external usb drive, can I install new drives and restore to the new raid 6 Array?

[spikemixture]

Backing everything up will keep your data. But configurations of your individual apps ain't so simple.

I have just re-initialized a Tvs-1282 and it took over a week to get the data back(28tb) and about the same time get my apps as they were.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[ruscat]

Wow. Thanks for the heads-up from your own experience. My 8TB NAS is a lot smaller & simpler, so my down time would be less than in your case. However I may have to rethink the move to raid 6. Even though my files are backed up on a regular basis, it looks like I have to decide if I want to be down for a long time or whether to just stick with raid 5. Thanks again for your input.

[spikemixture]

Raid 6 for 5 drives I think is overkill.
Raid 6 will cover you for 2 drives (out of 5) failing at the same time. You would be unlucky !

And you loose another 20% (or is it 25%) of your storage.

Use Raid 5 and back up to another box