D-Link Forums

The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: mikej0317 on February 05, 2010, 12:32:19 PM

Title: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: mikej0317 on February 05, 2010, 12:32:19 PM: I currently have a single 1.5TB Seagate (7200rpm 300mb cache), and wanted to add a second drive. I want to add the drive as just a second drive. (there are some better drives out there, and want my second drive to be a little better.) Can I just install any drive? Or does it have to be identical.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: fordem on February 05, 2010, 12:45:52 PM: It does not need to be identical, if you plan to run a RAID array, it will need to be the same size or larger.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: mikej0317 on February 06, 2010, 07:26:11 AM: Cool! Thanks.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: darkesha on February 07, 2010, 02:11:40 PM: I am running same 1.5TB Seagate disk by itself.
Today I got a 750GB drive.

I want to run the second one as
Volume_2 (I guess), so separate drive with separate data on it (in this case everything except DVD movies).

What is the safest and fastest way to format the new drive without losing data on my first drive ?
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: fordem on February 07, 2010, 04:58:59 PM: The safest way is to back up the data.

You can also unplug the existing drive before installing the new one and after formatting the new one, plug the first one back in.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: perfectdark on February 09, 2010, 10:02:18 AM: Quote from: fordem on February 07, 2010, 04:58:59 PM
The safest way is to back up the data.

You can also unplug the existing drive before installing the new one and after formatting the new one, plug the first one back in.

Once you plug the first drive back in, will the DNS-323 know not to format that drive? I too am looking at adding a second drive (2TB) but don't want to lose data on the current (1st drive) and have no way of backing it up (I am n ot going to buy another 1TB drive just to back it up)
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on February 09, 2010, 10:21:13 AM: Remember: Data you don't have at least two copies of is data you don't care about.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: mig on February 09, 2010, 02:47:54 PM: Quote from: perfectdark on February 09, 2010, 10:02:18 AM
(I am n ot going to buy another 1TB drive just to back it up)

Does it really matter if the DSN-323 knows, weather or not, to format the first drive?
If you're not going to backup your data, just put the new drive in, and hope for the best.

or you could have an experience like:
Lampaernyo http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=10267.0 (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=10267.0)
mvejvoda http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=6145.0 (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=6145.0)
Scottk http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=4724.0 (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=4724.0)
Lupismaximus http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=2808.msg15891#msg15891 (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=2808.msg15891#msg15891)
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: Buhric on February 09, 2010, 06:59:44 PM: Quote from: perfectdark on February 09, 2010, 10:02:18 AM
(I am n ot going to buy another 1TB drive just to back it up)

Man, take a couple of hours and burn the more important info to DVDs
If the Data you have is important for you and dont want to take a chance and loose it,
I'm sure you can scrounge up a few undreds of GB here and there...
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: fordem on February 10, 2010, 04:29:53 AM: Quote from: Buhric on February 09, 2010, 06:59:44 PM
Man, take a couple of hours and burn the more important info to DVDs
If the Data you have is important for you and dont want to take a chance and loose it,
I'm sure you can scrounge up a few undreds of GB here and there...

Buhric - forgive me for asking - but if he doesn't care, why should you?

The need for a backup goes far beyond just about covering a potential glitch whilst adding a new drive (which is all he's asking about) to an inexpensive NAS - he could decide not to add that drive and the next day he loses all his data when the existing drive fails - or - he could add the drive and everything goes well, and then the day after that a power failure corrupts the disk allocation bitmaps, rendering the data inaccessible.

And just so it's clear - this is not a D-Link related issue - he could be putting his data on the latest, greatest, Equallogic SAN and if he doesn't have a backup - poof - it's history

Backup is something that needs to be done on an ongoing basis.

At least one of the people posting in this thread has two D-Link NAS, one backing up the other, and housed in a fireproof enclosure - me - I don't backup my DNS-323 but that's because the NAS holds backups of another server.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on February 10, 2010, 06:08:40 AM: I'm the guy with two NAS units backing each other up, and my DNS-323 is also only for backup. The DNS-321 that gets the weekly sync from the DNS-323 is just because I'm paranoid. :)

You can't have too much backup, but it's very easy to have too little. ;)

Yes, I have had occasion to dip into the second level backup in the past.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: mikej0317 on February 11, 2010, 11:24:25 AM: I just installed the drive. No problem. When you boot the utility, it DOES tell you that if you add and format the second drive, it will not affect your existing data.
Title: Re: Adding a different second Hard Drive
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on February 11, 2010, 12:04:50 PM: If you had done a search of messages here, you'd find several people that believed that and formatted the drive, only to find out it formatted the one with data. :)