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[Arvald]

I have a single 1TB WD Caviar Black in the unit right now set up as "Standard Individual disks"

I'm looking at buying a pair of 1.5TB WD Caviar Green (if on the supported list) drives and moving the Caviar Black to my PC.

My question is, is there a way to add the first of the 2 drives to the unit in RAID 1 degraded state.  Move the files then exchange the 1.5 drive in and build the RAID.

I think this may work: pull the 1TB and add in the 2 1.5 TB drives and have them build the raid.  power off the unit and then pull on to put in the 1TB... I should see 2 volumes to be able to move files but I want confirmation.  if needed I can take the time to copy all the data.  I just want to make sure nothing is lost as these are my wifes business files.

[fordem]

Start by backing up your wife's business files - she probably will be very unhappy if anything happens to them.  Once you've backed the data up, remove the disk, install the new ones and format as RAID1 and then restore that data.

If you're feeling brave - omit the backup step, remove the disk with your wife's data, connect it to a computer - either running linux or Windows XP and the ext2ifs file system driver - and verify you can access the data, and then install the new disks in the DNS-323, format as RAID1 and then copy the data across.

You do not want to be swapping drives in and out after creating a RAID array - and - don't think that with RAID1 you don't need to backup, you still do.

[Arvald]

That is the step I was leaning to.
Part of my job is administering a SAN and backups so I completely understand that.  there is still a single point of failure that can take out the data on the unit... the unit itself, so RAID1 is no guarantees.
But the files are the backup unit to start so I am not too worried.
I understand the need for backups, I'm just trying to see what I can do to speed things.

I have a usb-sata cable I can use if needed.

[fordem]

Sounds to me like you're all set.

I've used a USB/SATA/IDE cable myself with the ext2ifs driver to get data off of the disks from my DNS-323 (not that I have needed to, but I was testing it as a disaster recovery option).

If the data is your wife's backup, just pull the single drive and put it in a safe place (no need to backup the backup), install the new disks, format them in RAID1 and run a new backup.  Keep the old disk safe for a couple of weeks until you're comfortable with the new ones, and then repurpose it.