Upgrade a EX2 from 2TB drives to 8TB drives

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
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I have a EX2 with factory installed 2TB drives in a RAID 1 configuration.

I would like to install 2 8TB drives in the EX2 in place of the 2TB drives.

Is this possible?

If so, what would be a good 7200RPM drive to use?

I see the WD Red and WD Red Pro but they are only 5400RPM.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Michael

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First; It most certainly possible to upgrade from 2 x 2TB to 2 x 8TB.

Theoretically, you can do it without losing any data. (I would have a backup. . .although I have read that this works just fine. . . .I am not a trusting person).

Second, WD has “confused” the Red Product line. As of today;

  • Red = SMR Technology, 5400 rpm drives <----- Avoid at all costs. Totally unsuitable for NAS (or really any) usage
  • Red Plus = CMR technology, 5400 RPM <----- Last I heard, these were the default drives in WD NAS units. Perfectly fine for nearly all applications. Fine for streaming. Not fine for games. . .but if you are a gamer, you aren’t running the game from a NAS to start with.
  • Red Pro = CMR technology, 7200 RPM <----- As good as it gets with HDDs.

Note that most manufacturers make quality NAS drives. Almost all will work in a WD NAS.
In my mind. . .the key is to ensure you get a CMR, not SMR drive. Manufacturers deliberately try to hide if a drive is SMR. SMR saves ~10% manufacturing cost, does not affect the price you pay, and really compromises performance.

7200rpm won’t be SMR. . . so you should be good to go.

1 Like
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Thank you for the help!

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Feel free to point me to another thread if this has already been asked and I just couldn’t find it.

I have an older EX2 and one of my harddrives failed. I’d like to replace it with a new, larger harddrive. Can I do that? or do I need to fix the broken harddrive situation first and then upgrade them to larger/faster harddrives?