tricky situation. I own My Book Live Duo, and it worked perfectly well but then 1 drive died. Warranty was over, so WD relplied they can’t help, so I just purchased new My Book on Best Buy. Now the story starts.
I must admit - I am not the brightest bulb on the porch, that is why I purchased My Book Duo 8 Tb. Which is nice, but i needed network storage, and just mixed MBLD with MBD considering it the same thing. So I ended up owning broken MBLD and useless (in my situation) MBD. I red discussions here and understood I can’t just change HDDs in my old MBLD (Green Caviar 2+2 Tb) for new HDDs. So my questions are:
(background - MBLD (2+2) was on Raid 1, 1 disk remains, i got all my data in it, it is accessible, NAS is working; MBD (4+4) is on Raid1, empty)
Can I take HDDs from my new MBD and put it to MBLD ? As those 4+4 HDDs have OS for Raid1 installed and configured for 4+4, and WD empty box itself may just be a hast - logically thinking
If not, what will be the most suitable way to add my shining new toy MBD to the network usage - connect it with USB to the router (Zyxel keenetic) or Connect it with USB to MBLD as additional storage ?
After backing up all the archives from old MBLD, what second HDD do i install in there ? There are no 2 Tb Green caviar on sale anymore, what would be the substitution ?
Thanks for reading, it was a long and chaotic post (I am not a smart man, I told you)
This is not recommended, but some advanced users have been able to replace the original disk drives. The operating system of the WD My Book Live Duo rests within the disks, so replacing both disks at once means the unit will not boot.
Bear in mind this is not supported or guaranteed or recommended by Western Digital, but if you are interested in the process of cloning the OS to the new drives then I’d recommend a board search for “debrick” threads. However, the new WD My Book Duo hard drives could be physically incompatible with your WD My Book Live Duo due to generational differences.
I’d recommend connecting the unit to your router, but some routers do not support USB hard drives larger than 2TB.
I suspected something like generation incompatibility, so stopped myself from switching disks in the last minute. Not familiar with Linux at all, unfortunately, so wouldn’t dare go debricking myself, may probably ask these people with long hair and strange facial expressions looking at the bash on black screens.
Zyxel allows an access to MBD, all the volume it available luckily, I was just thing connecting MBD to MBLD via USB might be faster.
Do you by the way know something on what 2nd HDD should i put it MBLD instead of dead one ?
The WD My Book Live Duo supports first generation (EFRX) WD Red hard drives up to 3TB:
The issue here is cloning/migrating the OS. Some Users have tried a mixed RAID 1 array with one original hard drive and a compatible WD Red for the array to rebuild, then replacing the remaining original disk drive and waiting for another rebuild. The last step would be performing a full factory reset (This is data-destructive) in order to create a new clean volume.
I don’t understand why you just didn’t buy a replacement drive when your DUO failed. The best prices I found were on Amazon. Just pull the failed drive, put in the new drive, and you are good to go.’
You bought yourself a whole bunch of hurt by not RTFM. Go buy a replacement drive and rebuild your DUO and use the other unit as a second NAS.
Just remember, when you die the one who has the most NAS TB wins!
I have 5 MBLs (4 DUOs) and nearly 20TB NAS. But it’s fine with me if you die first.
Bwahaha I would love to but Amazon doesn’t send to Russia. And there are no new Green Caviars on stock anymore, while WD just ignores my requests for what would be the official substitution.
