G-Raid’s docs are useless so I hope this can be of help to someone else.
If you have a G-Raid 2 setup with two drives in Raid, and you remove those in order to add one or more drives in JBOD, the drives you are adding will have to be erased (that is in the documentation).
Every time you change the configuration of the G-Raid 2 you need to put at least one drive in it, and that drive will have to be erased.
So if you want to pop your Raid pair back into the device, it will only do so if you erase those drives. Obviously not what you want to do.
If you’ll want to access them again, you’ll have to use two drives, that you don’t mind erasing, to change the configuration. After doing that, when you pop your drives back in, your data will be there.
I’ve seen people talking about using the device in JBOD and using Mac’s own raid funcitonality to make them independent of the G-Raid. That’s probably the most sensible way to use a G-raid 2.
Hi @bareezy,
Have you checked our knowledge base articles?
(Support for Western Digital Hard Drives | Western Digital)
Have you opened a Support Case?
If not, contact Western Digital Technical Support for assistance.
[Contact Us | Western Digital]
Your knowledge base articles were of zero use.
The G-RAID 2 can be tricky to work with due to gaps in its documentation. Every time you change the device’s configuration—whether switching from RAID to JBOD or vice versa—it requires at least one drive inserted, and that drive will be erased in the process.
If you remove your RAID pair and insert different drives for JBOD, the new drives must be erased. Later, if you try to put your original RAID drives back in, the device will prompt you to erase them as well, which obviously defeats the purpose.
The only way around this is to use two drives you don’t mind wiping to switch the configuration. Once the device is set up again, you can shut it down, put your original RAID drives back in, and your data should still be there.
The more reliable approach is to keep the G-RAID 2 in JBOD mode and let macOS handle the RAID setup. That way, you’re not locked into G-RAID’s limitations and have better control over your data.
Yup. That’s what I ended up doing.
