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[ninjainthenight]

Hi, My NAS is stored away from my main network and recently it had to be switched off for a fair amount of time, say over a week in this case.  I reconnected it today and the RAID type on both disks 1 and 2 has changed from RAID 1 to Standard. I did not do it, it has always been RAID 1. As of a few hours ago, both drives had exactly 143.16GB free space, however now they are unequal and it clearly states STANDARD in the RAID type box.

its not a big deal as such, however I specifically want RAID 1. I only use it for photo redundancy really and a few odds and ends.

My concern is this, and I just want to check my understanding before I go ahead and accidentally erase everything

Disk 1 lets say has everything on already although I deleted some bits and there is now 350GB free. It is down as RAID standard

Disk 2 still has only 143.16GB free and is also set as RAID type Standard.

my question then is

IF i were to change the RAID type of Disk 2 to RAID 1, would it format ONLY disk 2, or would it format all drives thus losing all data?

if it will delete all data, can i somehow re-setup RAID 1 without losing everything?

I know you will want to refer me to "that" RAID 1 post, but it doesn't apply to me here, I'm aware of the difference between redundancy and backup but this safeguarding method works for my very limited need which is only to reduce the risk of loss within my own network.

Any guidance very much appreciated.

[ninjainthenight]

just bumping hoping someone may be able to help

[ivan]

A couple of quick questions.

1)  How old is your unit?  I ask because, unless you did a 'reset to factory defaults', the usual way that a unit looses settings is if the CMOS battery voltage is low.  You can do an additional check by looking at the other settings to see if they have changed back to defaults.

2)  Do you have a full backup of the data you want to keep? 

Since you have changed what is on disk 1 compared to disk 2 the easiest thing to do is to set them up as RAID 1, let the unit format the disks and restore from your backup - that is after replacing the CMOS battery if necessary [you don't want to go through the same procedure again after the next shut down].

There are ways of restoring a RAID 1 array but there is always the possibility of loosing data so a backup is almost mandatory.   

[ninjainthenight]

thanks for your reply. I am currently backing up having removed all the non necessary data.

I had not thought of the CMOS.  The unit was purchased on or around release time so possibly 3 years or so now I guess. 

Is there a way to check CMOS battery status? I will check that before I do it all, i decided on a good cleanup so  I've cleared a lot of junk, I'm backing up everything, then i will factory reset, then reinstall as raid 1.

I may use fun_plug, but i didn't much care for it last time i installed it so I removed it.