Question NAS and upgrade path

[simontompkins]

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a four bay NAS for RAID 5 storage.

Let's say I get 3 x 8TB drives leaving me 16 TB of storage.
In three years time I want to double the storage and get 3 x 16 TB of storage.
I know RAID 5 allows me to replace a faulty disc but what about if I want to replace all the discs and keep all the data but don't have anything else to move the data off to.

Can I, for example, replace one of the 8 TB drives with a 16 TB and then replace the other two in sequence so that I keep all the daya without needing another appliance?
As I understand it the original RAID array is built using 3 x 8TB drives so if I were to add in a 16 TB it would only use 8TB of that drive.
However, after all three drives are replaced in sequence, can I then resize the array to 32 TB and still keep all the data on the drives.

 

[kanewolf]

Hi,
I'm thinking of buying a four bay NAS for RAID 5 storage.

Let's say I get 3 x 8TB drives leaving me 16 TB of storage.
In three years time I want to double the storage and get 3 x 16 TB of storage.
I know RAID 5 allows me to replace a faulty disc but what about if I want to replace all the discs and keep all the data but don't have anything else to move the data off to.

Can I, for example, replace one of the 8 TB drives with a 16 TB and then replace the other two in sequence so that I keep all the daya without needing another appliance?
As I understand it the original RAID array is built using 3 x 8TB drives so if I were to add in a 16 TB it would only use 8TB of that drive.
However, after all three drives are replaced in sequence, can I then resize the array to 32 TB and still keep all the data on the drives.

It depends on the specific NAS you are considering. The big NAS brands (Synology, QNAP, Thecus) have good forums on their pages. I would start looking there.