I currently run a TS-251 with two drives, mirrored in RAID 1.
Right now the NAS is only used for file storage.
In theory–in an emergency–I could remove either one of the two drives, carry it with me as a “truly-most-recent offsite backup” as I exit the building, and I should be able to read the contents of that drive by attaching it to a laptop. Except …
I don’t think that would really work, would it?
The QNAP’s RAID drive is formatted in QNAP’s own format, which no Windows or Apple laptop is gonna be happy with. Do I really have to have a second QNAP-brand server to read the to-be-recovered drive?
If I read my options correctly, I could reset my configuration within the QNAP server and re-format my two drives as NTFS. And then this emergency offsite backup scheme … should work? (Could it work?)
Anyone have experience trying to read data from one of a QNAP RAID 1 mirrors? Am I right about it requiring the drives to be NTFS formatted?
Hi and welcome to the forum. 
If you’re going to take the time to eject one of the drives, why not take the whole NAS instead? It’s easy to disconnect the cables in-back, and this unit isn’t particularly large or heavy.
Where did you read that? QNAP does NOT support internal drives in NTFS.
Thanks, OneCD. And my reason for trying to do this with just the one drive is, indeed, size. Hot swap drive fits in a briefcase. TS-2xx doesn’t.
Also thanks dolbyman for helping me recover my rtfm skills … I read about the NTFS info … in the qt docs for formatting external attached drives. Not internal.
So now I’m back to my original thought … how to read data from one QNAP mirror. Ext2fsd? Is a QNAP mirror written in regular ext4? Or maybe I have to prepare a Linux boot CD to read it?
Still another option … go with an external attached drive (maybe an even more-briefcase-friendly SSD). Format that NTFS (or exFAT?), then use OneTouch to duplicate the entire NAS data partition out to the external every day or two … adding a level of protection against ransomware.
Clearly I’ve got more reading to do.
Get a USB toaster and another hard drive. Once you sync it with the NAS you can use one button touch to resync in a very short time.
It’s an emergency. Why is the convenience of carrying a single drive in a briefcase important?
It sounds like you’re trying to use your RAID1 as a simple offsite backup system. Don’t do it. The NAS isn’t designed for this and will ultimately cause the failure of your NAS.
Conduct a proper backup onto an external drive, then carry that in your briefcase when you leave.
I wasn’t really thinking about yanking the RAID 1 mirror repeatedly. I’ve been here 7 years and never once had an occasion to even tempt me (knocking on wood frantically).
But what you’re saying is persuasive. I don’t want to screw up the NAS. Or even take the risk. It would give me an easy-to-carry backup and a proper airgap against ransomware
Thanks for the suggestions and comments.
In the old days we referred to these as “USB toaster” now if you search for that they actually make USB toasters. This is what I meant: USB 3.0 to SATA Docking Station for 2.5" or 3.5"' HDD/SSD - Sabrent
This and whatever size HDD you need and you are good to go,
Good to go @Franklin. I’m an “old days” guy so I knew what you meant … although in my day USB 3.0 wasn’t a thing. We did SCSI cables.