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[dbar]

I recently got a DNS 321 for home backup and set it up as RAID 1.  I planned to rotate three 1TB drives and keep one of them outside my home.  I pulled one of the RAID 1 drives and inserted a new one.  Somehow I reformatted BOTH drives in the unit and the system is telling me they are blank.  Two questions:

1) Since all my data should still be on the drive I pulled, what is the procedure for getting back to that point and then rebuilding the array?  I don't want to insert that drive and have it reformat the data away.

2) What is the best way to keep this from happening again?  I think I had the right idea by having a 3rd drive but obviously I did something stupid.

thanks for any help

[gunrunnerjohn]

Take the other two drives out and put in only the backup in the correct location.  You can then recover the data.

IMO, your idea is pretty poor, you should stick the disks into the DNS-321 and LEAVE them there!  Use a USB enclosure and a synchronization application to make backups on the USB external drive and take that with you.

[dbar]

Thanks for the tip I'll give it a try.  I assume if it prompts me to format the drive I just "skip" that step, right?

I have been wirelessly backing up four PC's running the Western Digital version of Memeo to the DNS-321 which hangs off my router in the basement.   So I've been treating the DNS-321 as my backup and it does not have a USB port.  I thought it would be easier to periodically rebuild the array with the 3rd drive than take something around to each one of the PC's.  If anyone has advice on better approaches I would greatly appreciate it.

BTW - I had a WD MyBookWorld which did not have RAID and after the thing crashed twice in 18 months I decided to replace with a RAID 1 instead of buying yet another WD device.  That's how I got where I am.

thanks

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'm suggesting you do the backup of the NAS onto the USB drive connected to your computer.  I use Beyond Compare www.scootersoftware.com for my drive sync tasks, but there are plenty of other applications.  Once you have a backup, you only have to copy the mismatched files, so the backup is pretty quick.