Using a TS251+ as 2 storage drives, not as a RAID setup

English Storage
1

Hi,
I’m very new to this sort of thing, so please be gentle with me! :slightly_smiling_face:

I have a TS251+ with 2x 4tb Western Digital Red drives that I got secondhand, and I’ve managed to set it up but it’s configured as a RAID setup, which (I think!) means I have 4tb storage, with the 2nd drive acting as a backup to it?
Is there a way (in simple, easy to understand terms) of setting it up so that I can store on both drives, to use the full 8tb as storage rather than mirroring the drives?

Many thanks,

Andy

2

A RAID is not a backup..so don’t mix that up.

The NAS could be setup in all sorts of different ways to have the full capacity.

Spanning JBOD, single disks, pooled disks, RAID0..

Have you checked out some QNAP quick start guides or manuals?

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Hi dolbyman, thanks for the quick reply.

I haven’t looked an any quick start guides other than the one i found to set it up, which gave me , I think, a RAID confguration.

I’ll google the ones you’ve stated and see if I can get more info.

Thanks again for your help.

4

So you can set it up in Raid0 for the fastest access to your content. Just be aware that if one of the drives fail you lose everything. But if you have the data backed up and just want raw, bulk storage, then it’s not a bad way to go.

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Hi NA9D, thanks for this, I’ll investigate the options and decide the best route. It looks like the back up looks to be the better one TBH, so I’ll probably stick with the setup I already have - just got to stop the drives from constantly whirring/clicking, but that’s another story after reading countless threads and posts here and elsewhere! :joy: Putting the unit into sleep mode after I’ve uploaded stuff seems the best solution, well, for me anyway…

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Just make sure it’s a backup and not a RAID

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Thanks for this - the link you provided has given me a far better understanding - thanks again.

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My opinion is, how much is your data worth? Secondhand drives are cheap, I would never use a NAS without RAID as if you lose one drive, as others have said you lose all your data which may be worth much more than the drive.