Can a NAS 4 bay also just be a readable hub?

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud Pro Series
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So, my goal is to have a variety of things happening on each hard drive and wonder IF POSSIBLE???

I want the NAS Pro Series with 4 bays.

1st bay = RAID protection on one, ability to replace that one drive if fails and data is recovered) and data connected to cloud for remote access

2nd bay = set up a sync system so that 1st bay and 2nd bay are mirroring each other. ? AND can I take that SATA drive out and link it to another PC (via docking station). I can read the files too? I want to do that just in case I need to send that drive for an offline archive.

3rd bay = “viewing drive” I just want to save files on it like a regular HDD, so can a NAS just read a SATA that already has data on it? Just want to look up old files from another SATA drive, pop it in and I see my files. Can the NAS bay also just read and write files to the drive AND i can take it out and ready and write the file on another PC via docking station.

4th bay = editing drive, Community shared editing over the cloud

Basically, my question is…can the NAS bay (in general) just read SATA drives too? I want the capability to insert a SATA drive (already has files on it) and its readbale on PC…and then I can add files etrc…eject and send to another person and they can read the drive on their docking station as well? Just like an HDD. OR does the NAS bay ONLY function as a cloud based tool? I only need two bays to actually have network shared capabilities (1st and 4th bay) and just reading and writing (2nd and 3rd bay)

Thoughts???

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Ummm. . . . to put it simply. . . .I don’t think the system can work the way you describe.

I believe when you establish a raid setup on the unit, it’s going to apply the raid architecture to all the drives. Further, in most of the Raid setups, you can’t pull a drive out of the bay and have it readable by a PC.

So. . .in your case, I would get a 2 bay unit for the raid backup. . . I am momentarily fogging on how many USB ports these things have. . . is it two? If so. . . you can plug in a USB drive dock into one USB port and a standard USB drive into the other port. . .and I think it will work like you want.

Regarding using a 2 bay unit with three drives (one in offsite location as backup, periodically swapping with a drive in the unit to do a backup. . . . a User named Raphael played with that a year ago. It seemed fraught with “issues”. I am now using a 3 drive rotation - sort of- with a two bay unit. Basically. . .I have a standard 2 bay unit, but I periodically do an incremental backup to a standard USB drive which is generally stored offsite.

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Before I ever bought one of these things with all your wishful thinking, I would download the complete user manual from WD support. You need to do some homework.