Increase hard drive capacity iCloud Ex Ultra 2 Ultra - Hard drive change

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
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Hello,

I appeal to the WD community to find out how I can increase the capacity of my Icould Ex 2 Ultra 2 x 2 TB without any data loss risk.

After looking at different forums about it, I still have not found any sure answer to this question.

I wish to change the 2 built in hard drives present in the box in order to switch them to 2x 4TB or maybe 2 x 6 TB.

First of all, is it possible to put hard drives of those capacities in this box? What is the maximum capacity of this box for info?

Can we put any kind of hard disk or are there any disks to use in particular? I seem to have seen a question of color “RED” from WD, is it essential or can we put any type of color / brand inside?

Then, what is the procedure for doing so upgrade without losing the data already presented on it?

In what order should we proceed? (remove a hard drive, put a new, …?) It would arrange me not to have to duplicate 2 TB on a third support for backup.

I do not usually use forums for this kind of question but I have unfortunately not found any clear procedure to follow online.

I hope this topic can help others at the same time.

Thank you in advance for your help!

1 Like
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Yes, you can place hard drives of more storage capacity in My Cloud EX2 Ultra enclosure and WD Red internal hard drive is the suggested drive for NAS operations. As the My Cloud EX2 Ultra device is available upto 20TB storage capacity, so you may use 2 drives each upto 10TB capacity. Also you may refer below link which will help you to change drives from My Cloud enclosure;

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=17087

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asp73,
You mention that you can use 2 drive up to 10GB, but you don’t address the question about increasing capacity ''without data loss". I would agree that the EX2 will support larger capacity drives, how would you go about adding the drives while maintaining the data.

Can you pull one drive out and put in a larger drive, let the unit mirror the data from the remaining smaller disk to the new larger disk, then when mirroring is complete, pull out the second smaller disk and replace it with a second larger disk?

I have seen other posts that say when you put in the first larger disk, it will get formatted to the same size as the original, smaller disk.

What is the process to upgrade the EX2 from a 2TB system to a 4TB system without losing any data?

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  1. You don’t have to use WD drives. You can mix and match brands. (It is best if the drives are the same size)
  2. The “Red” drives from WD are their 5400rpm 365/24/7 drives. They will last longer than the OEM grade blue drives, which are not intended for 365/24/7 service.

Not sure how you migrate without using a backup drive, if you are configured as Raid 1.
If you are using JBOD; I suspect you can make it work; although you may have a “copy all data from drive 1 to drive 2” somewhere in there.

It would not be a bad idea to have a backup - > highly recommended. 2TB external drives are not that expensive. If you are even slightly paranoid, it is also recommended to store that backup drive “somewhere else”; like in an office away from home.

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HI,
I am planning to increase the storage also. Did you ever get a response to you question?
Best Regards,
Nicolas

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ENG:
Hi
Just wanted to share my experience.
I have one EX2 Ultra 4TB (2TB x 2 really, RAID1) device, and I just upgraded to 12 TB (2x12TB Raid1).
I did the following steps:
1.- Hibernated the unit, then pluged off the power conector. To ensure it will be off (if not, after some seconds, the unit starts again)
2.- I Removed one of the two HD, and turned the unit back on
3.- The removed unit, I put it in my PC, and I formated it in Windows as Regular HD (I just discovered that RAID Units had RAW format, that you cannot easely access in windows, at least with my little knowledge).
4.- I Backed up the data remaining in the NAS unit, to the unit conected to my PC. This took me like 5 hours at 75 MB/sec avg, on gigabit network.
5.- I Hibernated the NAS device once again, then pluged of the power conector, and took off the second 2TB remaining HD
6.- I put the two brand new 12TB disk in my EX 2 Ultra device.
7.-I Turned the device on
8.- I went to WD my cloud home manager, where I configured it as brand new RAID 1 unit. This is actually pretty simple to do. 10 minuts of wait, about.
That’s it, All set, ready to roll. Now it’s owrking perfectly.

I just had to configure again my windows conected network Hard Drive. But that’s simply create the share folder again in web manager, and then put “\MYCLOUDEX2ULTRA” on windows explorer, and then connect the new folder as HD unit to see it on “my computer”.

My device used to had 2xWD RED NAS 2TB. But since I counld’t find the same brand at a good price, I upgraded it with 12TBx2 Ironwolfs NAS (7200 rpm). It’s working perfectly. The copying process back to the new 12TB device, was at 110 MB/sec. Maybe is becase was 7200RPM vs 5200 RPM I had before.

I Really hope to help somebody else, with same doubt I had before doing this.

ESP:
Hola
SĂłlo querĂ­a compartir mi experiencia.
Tengo un dispositivo EX2 Ultra 4TB (2TB x 2 realmente, RAID1), y acabo de actualizarlo a 12 TB (2x12TB Raid1).
Hice los siguientes pasos:
1.- Hibernar la unidad, luego desconectar el conector de alimentación. Para asegurarse de que estará apagado (si no, después de algunos segundos, la unidad se enciende de nuevo)
2.- Quité uno de los dos HD y volví a encender la unidad
3.- La unidad eliminada, la puse en mi PC y la formateé en Windows como HD Regular (acabo de descubrir que las Unidades RAID tenían formato RAW, al que no se puede acceder fácilmente en Windows, al menos con mi poco conocimiento).
4.- Realicé una copia de seguridad de los datos restantes en la unidad NAS, en la unidad conectada a mi PC. Esto me tomó como 5 horas a 75 MB / seg promedio, en una red gigabit.
5.- Hiberné el dispositivo NAS una vez más, luego desconecté el conector de alimentación y quité el segundo HD restante de 2TB
6.- Puse los dos discos nuevos de 12TB en mi dispositivo EX 2 Ultra.
7.- EncendĂ­ el dispositivo
8.- Fui a WD my cloud home manager, donde lo configuré como nueva unidad RAID 1. En realidad, esto es bastante sencillo de hacer. 10 minutos de espera, aproximadamente.
Eso es todo, listo para rodar. Ahora está funcionando perfectamente.

Solo tuve que configurar nuevamente mi disco duro de red conectado a Windows. Pero eso es simplemente crear la carpeta compartida nuevamente en el administrador web, y luego poner “\ MYCLOUDEX2ULTRA” en el explorador de Windows, y luego conectar la nueva carpeta como unidad HD para verla en “mi computadora”.

Mi dispositivo solía tener 2xWD RED NAS 2TB. Pero como no encontré la misma marca a buen precio, la actualicé con 12TBx2 Ironwolfs NAS (7200 rpm). Funciona perfectamente.

El preceso de copia de vuelta a la nueva unidad (12TB), fuè a 110 MB/sec, supongo que la diferencia es porque ahora son 7200 RPM (Ironwolf), y antes eran 5200 RPM (WD RED)

Realmente espero ayudar a alguien más, con las mismas dudas que tenía antes de hacer esto.

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The brute force approach.

I can appreciate that. . . I will probably ungrade drives in the near future.
I intend to use the tools WITHIN the NAS to attempt the transfer. . . .but OF COURSE everything will be backed up elsewhere.

FYI: The discs in the EX2 are formatted EXT4; which is a linux thing. You can read the drives directly using a linux tool (or a LINUX PC)