My Cloud EX4100 storage for Dummies

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX Series
1

I’m confused about how my files are stored on the EX4100. I’ve got two 4 tb drives. When I transfer files do they go into one of the drives or both? If someone could explain the way it works in layman’s terms I’d appreciate it! :slight_smile:

2

I will assume you are using RAID 1 (Mirror). If so, files transferred to the volume are automatically copied at once to both drives.

If you are using a different RAID level/configuration like JBOD, files are not copied simultaneously. Hard drives are independent.

3

I checked and yes, I’m using RAID 1. So, I’ve got two drives with the same content on them? Kind of like a back up drive?

And if I add two more drives what happens? Is everything mirrored on ALL four drives?

4

Hi Rick,

ad a/ Yes in RAID 1 you have everything twice so in case one HDD will be corrupted you still have everything on the other drive. You can replace the bad drive with the new one and unit will restore RAID 1 …means will copy all your data into new drive so you will have it mirrored again. At the time you will have only one HDD the unit will work normaly but strongly recomend you to buy a new second HDD(best the same unit WD RED) in case something happed also with the first one.

ad 2/ If you buy another two HDD (new) , you shall do two things:

  • your can change the RAID from RAID 1 into some other RAID for example RAID 5 or 10. Or you can use JBOD but in all that cases you will loose the all data from HDD 1+2(the unit will have to format all the HDD)
    In RAID 5 you will have also kind of backup (even it is another syste then RAID 1 - the data are using all 4 HDD for redudance-backup) and you will get more capacity…exact for 4x4TB you will have almost 12TB free capacity. For JBOD you will get almost 16TB of free capacity but without any backup(redudancy) which I believe is not a way for you :slight_smile:

  • or which is better for you if you like kind of backup you can just confirgure the other two(new) HDD also in RAID 1 (I have it same in my WD MC DL 4100). This way you will have two volumes on the unit. Volume one in RAID 1 HDD 1+2 capacity 4TB , volume two in RAID 1 HDD 3+2 capacity 4 TB.

Hope this will help you.
David