4x8tb upgrade to 4x10tb

Legacy Products My Cloud OS 3
1

I have a WD PR4100 running in RAID 5 with 4x8tb WD Red drives.

I am considering upgrading to 4x10tb or 4x12tb drives - I have read that it is logistically possible to swap the drives out one at a time, rebuild the RAID, then do the next until all 4 are replaced.

However, the examples I’ve seen are all for smaller capacity upgrades (eg: 4x2tb to 4x4tb).

Has anyone performed a successful upgrade of a larger capacity RAID, and if so have any story to share?

Thanks.

3

Hi andy1966,

You can refer to the links mentioned below to know how to change the RAID mode in WD My Cloud PR4100.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/15992

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13412

4

If I correctly understand your question, I don’t believe you can do what you described BUT I have never tried to increase the capacity of an existing NAS.

The problem I see is that all drives in a RAID array must be the same size. The only way to do want you want that comes to mind is to back up the entire NAS as it is now, turn it off and upgrade all of the drives, turn it back on and let it set up your new RAID array, and then copy the backup to it. All of that would probably take many hours.

Depending on how much you value your time, might be easier to just buy a new 40 or 48 TB NAS, do a NAS to NAS copy, and then try to sell the old one.

Sorry I can’t really help but good luck!

5

RWild66,

Thanks for your reply and thoughts.

I have read that it is possible to replace each HDD in turn with a larger capacity drive, and to rebuild the RAID array each time. It would not recognise the higher capacity drives until all 4 have been replaced and the RAID array rebuilt a final time.

However, I’m not prepared to try this out based on a theory, which was why I was hoping for someone with practical experience of the process to be able to pass some advice.

Your suggestion to purchase a new NAS with higher capacity, and to then migrate the data across is the sensible and safest option, but also the most expensive.

Thanks again for your thoughts.