I have a new DL4100 that came with two 4GB drives running RAID 1. I have some 2GB drives (mix of Seagate and WD) that were running in a windows box that I would like to install both internally and externally to the DL4100. When I installed the Seagate drive, it shows in the dashboard as good, but my storage limit doesn’t increase and the drive light is a solid red.
Coming from a Windows Server, I am used to being able to add and remove drives at will. Is that not the case here? If there is a process/procedure that I’m missing, I’d appreciate some help.
Thanks.
Hi Todd_peppe
first of all: you are face to face with a Linux system.
Your existing RAID 1 will not encrease unless you add two more drives with the same capacity as yet included, so two more 4 GB WD Red drives. Then you have the option to encrease to RAID 10 or RAID 5.
What you can do with your existing drives: add two drives of same series with same capacity and create another RAID 1 as second array. Or use the new drives in JBOD mode aka each drive invidually.
The red LED shows that the drive is not formated right now as the My Cloud has to format the drive with Ext4 file system prior to use it. Open the web UI of your DL and click on Storage, then you can go further.
Thank you for your quick reply.
This is what I was afraid of with moving to the DL4100 and it seems like my fears weren’t unwarranted. But I suppose that learning any new technology has it’s hurdles.
Sorry for the follow-on questions, but being new to this, my learning curve is a bit steep. So even if I put in two new 4GB Red drives, the only way to format them is through the dashboard, which then formats all the drives (requiring a full backup prior and then restore)? And this would also be the case if I created another RAID 1 as second array? Is it possible to format them externally to Ext4 for use in the DL4100 using something like MiniTool Partition Wizard and not have to wipe my existing data?
In regards to creating another RAID 1 as a second array, is there documentation that you can point me to, or is it as simple as slapping in the two drives and following any on-screen instructions. And would this new array still be part of the existing volume?
Thanks again for your help.
You came from a Two-Drive RADI 1, add two more drives same capacity. Now the system recognizes that these drives would enable the RAID 5 configuration. Therefore the system kindly asks you if you want to have all drives working together in a RAID 5. This is called RADI Migration, from a lower RAID level to a higher RAID level.
Of course, you are right. During the RAID-rework, a power cut would be deadly. Therefore, a backup of the data would be a good choice prior to the RAID migration.
No. Creating another array on the newly inserted drives will NOT affect the exisiting array on the other drives.
No. The formating process is the last step in the RAID-Create process. First, the drives will be packed together in a RAID array, then - within this RAID array - the file system will be created (aka the partition will be formated and the file system will be created). This “job” cannot be done outside the system as the RAID array has to be created by the system itself.
You answered by yourself 
Follow the on-screen instructions (carefull reading of the on-screen texts may be helpfull)
Just joking; yes, it is pretty simple - but as usual, don’t hurry and keep calm.
