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Author Topic: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents  (Read 9997 times)

jeffnoone

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Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« on: January 10, 2008, 06:13:25 PM »
Have 2 500GB drives in the DNS-323
One is for HD video, the other is for HD music (eg Live Earth clips)

So can I build a HD library, where once (say) the video HD is full, I can catalogue contents, then swap out the video HD, replacing it with another 500GB drive to store/preserve clips

At a later time, can I swap back in the first video HD drive without formatting, or loosing contents?

Jeff
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bfaber

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2008, 06:27:21 AM »
As long as you run the unit with both drives formatted separately.. (so you get two external mountable shares), yes you could.

You'll have to shutdown, swap, restart.. but it should work.
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jeffnoone

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2008, 08:57:27 AM »
Thanks for reply
Once I have it filled up, will try this - I am running as two separate drives
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eclipse31

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2008, 12:55:24 PM »
Related question -- if one is running in RAID 1, can one easily use the DNS-323 in a three drive scenario? Two live drives in the unit, with a third swapped offsite on a periodic basis as an offsite backup? As long as the drives are the same model, will this work, or would one need to reformat the "third" drive so that it was blank before inserting it into the DNS-323? Or is the unit smart enough to "take over" a drive that's inserted in an empty slot?

-W
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fordem

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2008, 02:09:38 PM »
Quote from: eclipse31 on January 11, 2008, 12:55:24 PM
Related question -- if one is running in RAID 1, can one easily use the DNS-323 in a three drive scenario? Two live drives in the unit, with a third swapped offsite on a periodic basis as an offsite backup? As long as the drives are the same model, will this work, or would one need to reformat the "third" drive so that it was blank before inserting it into the DNS-323? Or is the unit smart enough to "take over" a drive that's inserted in an empty slot?

-W

This is not how RAID1 is intended to be used - if you do it, expect data loss.
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RAID1 is for disk redundancy - NOT data backup - don't confuse the two.

netmation

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2008, 06:41:19 PM »
So what RAID# is intended to support something like this.  Disappointed to hear this could not be done with the DNS-323.
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AWDL

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2008, 07:31:12 PM »
DNS-3200-20 should be the right product for you. The DNS-323 is geared a little more towards the home user and the feature set you are looking for is not available at this level. You should be looking for a device with atleast 3 bays and preferably 4 bays for higher RAID levels.
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Meanest person you know

fordem

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2008, 09:43:55 AM »
No RAID level is.

The purpose of RAID (other than RAID0) is to reduce the impact of the downtime caused by a disk failure - it is not intended to be a means of backup.
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RAID1 is for disk redundancy - NOT data backup - don't confuse the two.

AWDL

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2008, 04:19:56 PM »
Good job fordem. I did not get that was talking about a back up.

[slowly backing out of conversation]......
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chuckv

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Re: Can I swap drives in and out, preserving contents
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2008, 04:48:57 PM »
this conversation about RAID and backup never ends.. but i agree with fordem
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