Question Need to temporarily store 4TB of data

[kep55]

My RAID 5 NAS has 4 TB of various types data - txt, mov, mpg, doc, jpg, xls, etc. - that I need to temporarily store. I tried drop box but it wouldn't accept several file types, TXT being one of them.
I was told I could hot swap one drive at a time and tell the NAS to rebuild the RAID 5. Instead it wanted to reformat all four drives, wiping all the data. I killed that process fast. It's a Western Digital EX4100 and I want to replace the current 4TB drives with 6TB drives, I have 40 years of photos I want to digitize.
What now?

 

[kanewolf]

My RAID 5 NAS has 4 TB of various types data - txt, mov, mpg, doc, jpg, xls, etc. - that I need to temporarily store. I tried drop box but it wouldn't accept several file types, TXT being one of them.
I was told I could hot swap one drive at a time and tell the NAS to rebuild the RAID 5. Instead it wanted to reformat all four drives, wiping all the data. I killed that process fast. It's a Western Digital EX4100 and I want to replace the current 4TB drives with 6TB drives, I have 40 years of photos I want to digitize.
What now?

There are USB ports on that device. I would recommend using a directly connected USB hard drive as backup.

 

[USAFRet]

My RAID 5 NAS has 4 TB of various types data - txt, mov, mpg, doc, jpg, xls, etc. - that I need to temporarily store. I tried drop box but it wouldn't accept several file types, TXT being one of them.
I was told I could hot swap one drive at a time and tell the NAS to rebuild the RAID 5. Instead it wanted to reformat all four drives, wiping all the data. I killed that process fast. It's a Western Digital EX4100 and I want to replace the current 4TB drives with 6TB drives, I have 40 years of photos I want to digitize.
What now?

Buy a drive of relevant size.

Currently, it appears your "40 years of photos" is on a single volume, the RAID 5.
This is not good!

You need another data store.

 

[USAFRet]

I was told I could hot swap one drive at a time and tell the NAS to rebuild the RAID 5. Instead it wanted to reformat all four drives, wiping all the data.

What NAS is this?

When I tried something similar, I powered off, swapped one drive for a larger, let it rebuild. Not hotswap.
My QNAP did NOT want to reformat all 4.
Repeat for the next 3.
Going from 4x 3TB to 4x 4TB.
Took about 1.5 hours per TB of consumed space.
Upon replacing the last one, the RAID 5 array did indeed see the new larger space.

But I only did this with a known good backup of ALL of the 6.5TB data in the array.
Do NOT do this with the only copy.

 

[mdd1963]

There are Toshiba. Seagate, and WD external USB drives of 4-5 TB size readily available for about $100-$130...

If expanding your NAS for more storage with 6 TB drives, it won't be long before you'd really need at least 2 of the above. or, better yet a pair of larger 3.5" external USB drives of the 10-18 TB range.

Does your PC have an available internal 3.5" drive bay, or better yet, two of them? That would open up possibilities of simply adding a semi-large 3.5" drive or two, with mirroring for some data resiliency.

 

[DSzymborski]

Using RAID as a backup solution for personally valuable photos is just begging for a disaster.

 

[Yoda1234]

Why not check all that different Cloud storage providers as a solution?

Monthly based till you migrate to a new local NAS or annually for further redundancy.

I have 2 x NAS and I am considering also to have cloud storage syncing only the absolute must.... RAID failed me a week ago, and will be going in a hybrid model as noted.

 

[kep55]

Yoda1234 - Only dropbox offered the 4GB storage on free trial.. No one else did.
DSzymborski - So is storing any data on the bunch of holes held together with a bunch of string / vapor. Since our family is scattered between LA , Orlando, and Boston, having digital copies in invaluable.
mdd1963 - Once the NAS is rebuilt, I intend to put old 4TB drives into another PC as you suggest as well as replace a 1TB drive in an old Seagate enclosure.
USAF Retired - It a WD EX4100. The instructions specifically say to hot swap.
ALL - I found a 5TB Seagate portable drive at B&H Photo. Now I wait for the RAID 5 rebuild to finish.