[SOLVED] Raid w/ different size disks??

[WeakChin]

I wanted to know if it's possible to set up a raid with 1x 6TB drive acting as the backup drive for 3x 2TB drives?

Thats 4 drives total: 6,2,2,2

 

[Grobe]

If you mean RAID as in raid0 or raid5, then you can set it up with 3x 2TB disks. You can include the 6TB but you'll loose 4 TB.

In Windows, you have another option - I think it's called JBOD - that just append all disks into one big, but no performance boost (no striped raid at all) and neither any safety level (you loose all files if one disk go dead).

If you're using Linux, there are a better option, the filesystem BTRF that has built-in support for raid (raid 5 is not well supported yet, but you can use LVM instead for that). And it have a much better solution for appending the disks together as one big volume:

• The metatada is cloned between disks (this is optional), so if one disk die, only files physically located on that disk are lost.
• You don't have to use the whole 6TG for that. You can partition the drive and install the OS and programs to another partition on the 6TB drive that is not part of the big volume.

 

[WeakChin]

Performance is not an issue for me. I just wanted to backup the files spread across the 3x 2TB drives onto 1x 6TB drive in a NAS box with 4 bays.

I'm trying to avoid buying another 6TB drive if I can make use of the 3x 2TB drives I already have.

 

[BFG-9000]

RAID is not backup. If something corrupts or deletes files, then copies on all disks are immediately destroyed. Also, RAID 0 isn't really RAID--it's AID!

Sounds like you are asking if you can set up RAID 0+1 which is RAID 1 between two 6TB arrays--one consisting of a single drive, and the other consisting of three disks in RAID 0. Only the NAS enclosure manufacturer can tell you if that is possible before just trying it.

Or if you are just asking if it's possible to manually back up the 3 disks in an array to a 6TB disk all in the same enclosure, then yes just about any enclosure allows you to create a single-disk RAID "array" so you could even image/clone between them.

 

[USAFRet]

I wanted to know if it's possible to set up a raid with 1x 6TB drive acting as the backup drive for 3x 2TB drives?

Thats 4 drives total: 6,2,2,2

Not in any possible configuration of RAID types would that work as you hope.

Let us know what you actually want to do, what you currently have, and we can suggest a way forward.
But a RAID is almost certainly not the answer.

 

[WeakChin]

I'm considering buying a synology DS416 (4 bay NAS box) and I have 3x 2TB drives and 1x 6TB drive. What I actually want to do (with the NAS) is use the 2TB drives to store my stuff and have the 6TB drive be the backup (or vice versa).

 

[BFG-9000]

Synology falls into the "just about any enclosure" category I mentioned. Just create two storage pools, one basic for the 6TB disk, and one array: RAID 0 if you want to use all the space on the three 2TB drives, or RAID 5 or SHR if you are willing to lose 2TB for more data security.