Seagate NAS 220 SPAN to Raid 1

[kmoulton68]

I am trying to help my friend with her Seagate Blackarmor NAS 220. She has the following hard drives inside WDC WD10EFRX-68PJCN0 & a Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER1. They currently come up as SPAN but she wants them to be mirrored. How do I get them from SPAN to RAID 1? The person who helped her last ended up replacing both hard drives over the last few years. When I started helping her she had in it the WDC WD10EFRX-68PJCN0 but I believe no data is on it  since she had a new hard drive for Seagate I added it ST1000DM003-1ER1 in. I am now trying to get it to Raid 1 before I figure out my next step which is trying to get her photos backed up to it.

Thanks,
Kellie

 

[Grobe]

I don't have the exact answer for your question just because I haven't used one of these before. But I have a comment.

Mirrored disk is NOT backup. It is very less safe than an actual backup. Espechially these days where wannacry viruses (those that encrypt all your files) are flying everywhere around infecting everybodys computers. If that happens - there is no help in having a mirrored drive set, then in case of a new wannacry outbreak - both the data sets would be corrupted.

I don't know about your device, but if backup of photos is important, I would rather have run as two separate storage disks in no raid setup at all, just left disk #2 turned off, until incremental backup is done.

That is just my thaughts, its may not be the solution for you.

 

[kmoulton68]

She wants mirror so if one hard drive goes down again she won't lose all her pictures again. The Seagate Blackarmor comes with 2 slots for hard drives. I don't know how to turn one of them off without disconnecting it.

 

[kmoulton68]

I don't have the exact answer for your question just because I haven't used one of these before. But I have a comment.

Mirrored disk is NOT backup. It is very less safe than an actual backup. Espechially these days where wannacry viruses (those that encrypt all your files) are flying everywhere around infecting everybodys computers. If that happens - there is no help in having a mirrored drive set, then in case of a new wannacry outbreak - both the data sets would be corrupted.

I don't know about your device, but if backup of photos is important, I would rather have run as two separate storage disks in no raid setup at all, just left disk #2 turned off, until incremental backup is done.

That is just my thaughts, its may not be the solution for you.

She wants mirror so if one hard drive goes down again she won't lose all her pictures again. The Seagate Blackarmor comes with 2 slots for hard drives. I don't know how to turn one of them off without disconnecting it.

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 1 is not a backup.
It only protects against physical drive fail. It does nothing for the far more common forms of data loss.
Accidental deletion, virus, corruption, etc, etc.

The drives are currently SPANNED.
You'd need to copy all the data off to somewhere else, then create the RAID array, then copy the data back.
You can't go direct from SPAN to RAID and keep the data in place.


Again, though...RAID may seem like what she wants for 'data protection', but it really isn't.
There are other, better ways to do that.

 

[kmoulton68]

Her data is already been lost. I don't know how to do that. She has a laptop but also puts the pictures on the Blackarmor before.

 

[USAFRet]

Her data is already been lost. I don't know how to do that. She has a laptop but also puts the pictures on the Blackarmor before.

So you're trying to recover those pics?
Or something else?

 

[kmoulton68]

Her data is already been lost. I don't know how to do that. She has a laptop but also puts the pictures on the Blackarmor before.

So you're trying to recover those pics?
Or something else?

The pictures are long gone since the old hard drives went bad and the person that helped her did not do it correctly. I am trying to get it to mirror then figure out how to set it up for any new photos to be saved to it.

 

[USAFRet]

Her data is already been lost. I don't know how to do that. She has a laptop but also puts the pictures on the Blackarmor before.

So you're trying to recover those pics?
Or something else?

The pictures are long gone since the old hard drives went bad and the person that helped her did not do it correctly. I am trying to get it to mirror then figure out how to set it up for any new photos to be saved to it.

So there's no data on this thing you wish to save/recover?

 

[kmoulton68]

Her data is already been lost. I don't know how to do that. She has a laptop but also puts the pictures on the Blackarmor before.

So you're trying to recover those pics?
Or something else?

The pictures are long gone since the old hard drives went bad and the person that helped her did not do it correctly. I am trying to get it to mirror then figure out how to set it up for any new photos to be saved to it.

So there's no data on this thing you wish to save/recover?

no data on the 2 current hard drives that are in it. The two bad hard drive sitting out is a whole other mess.

 

[USAFRet]

OK, the user manual:
https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/about/newsroom/media-kits/_shared/images/BlackArmorNAS220UserGuide.pdf

The default setup is RAID 1 (pg 33)

If you wish to actually create a RAID 1 (and I'm not convinced that's what you need), you just create a new Volume, and tell it to be RAID 1.


However...are you using this Seagate for primary storage, or will the data live on the laptop, and be backed up to the NAS?

 

[kmoulton68]

OK, the user manual:
https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/about/newsroom/media-kits/_shared/images/BlackArmorNAS220UserGuide.pdf

The default setup is RAID 1 (pg 33)

If you wish to actually create a RAID 1 (and I'm not convinced that's what you need), you just create a new Volume, and tell it to be RAID 1.


However...are you using this Seagate for primary storage, or will the data live on the laptop, and be backed up to the NAS?

I don't know how to double check if it is still set up as Raid 1 as I think in was changed as it says span. She will be using it for a back up to her pictures only as she will also be keeping the pictures on her laptop

 

[USAFRet]

I don't know how to double check if it is still set up as Raid 1 as I think in was changed as it says span. She will be using it for a back up to her pictures only as she will also be keeping the pictures on her laptop

Read and understand the user manual.

This still doesn't call for a RAID 1, just a good backup routine from the laptop to the NAS. No matter how the NAS is configured.

 

[kmoulton68]

I don't know how to double check if it is still set up as Raid 1 as I think in was changed as it says span. She will be using it for a back up to her pictures only as she will also be keeping the pictures on her laptop

Read and understand the user manual.

This still doesn't call for a RAID 1, just a good backup routine from the laptop to the NAS. No matter how the NAS is configured.

NAS has 2 hard drives and if I am not mistaken I thought for the 2 drives to be mirrored to each other it has to be RAID 1?

 

[USAFRet]

NAS has 2 hard drives and if I am not mistaken I thought for the 2 drives to be mirrored to each other it has to be RAID 1?

Correct.
However, RAID 1 is not the backup mechanism here.
Yes, you can do it. But the actual data backup is a copy on the laptop AND a copy on the NAS box.
What happens inside the NAS box is mostly irrelevant.

In a RAID 1, the user and the OS sees a single volume. A single file.
A copy of a file living on the laptop AND the NAS box is the real "backup".

The RAID 1 simply wards off drive fail inside the NAS box.
But if you have 2 copies of the data anyway (laptop and NAS)...a dead drive in the NAS box is not a data killer.

See where I'm going with this?

 

[kmoulton68]

NAS has 2 hard drives and if I am not mistaken I thought for the 2 drives to be mirrored to each other it has to be RAID 1?

Correct.
However, RAID 1 is not the backup mechanism here.
Yes, you can do it. But the actual data backup is a copy on the laptop AND a copy on the NAS box.
What happens inside the NAS box is mostly irrelevant.

In a RAID 1, the user and the OS sees a single volume. A single file.
A copy of a file living on the laptop AND the NAS box is the real "backup".

The RAID 1 simply wards off drive fail inside the NAS box.
But if you have 2 copies of the data anyway (laptop and NAS)...a dead drive in the NAS box is not a data killer.

See where I'm going with this?

I am going by what she wants. Her previous laptop was stolen and then months later the NAS hard drives starting having issues. So she wants each hard drive in the 220 to be mirrored to each other

 

[USAFRet]

I am going by what she wants. Her previous laptop was stolen and then months later the NAS hard drives starting having issues. So she wants each hard drive in the 220 to be mirrored to each other

OK.
But that's still only one actual copy.

Read the user manual for how to create that RAID 1 volume.
Then, set up some scheduled, automatic backup from the laptop to the NAS box. Many free tools can do this.

On a folder/file level, SyncBackFree or FreeFileSync
On a whole drive level (highly recommended), Macrium Reflect.

 

[kmoulton68]

I am going by what she wants. Her previous laptop was stolen and then months later the NAS hard drives starting having issues. So she wants each hard drive in the 220 to be mirrored to each other

OK.
But that's still only one actual copy.

Read the user manual for how to create that RAID 1 volume.
Then, set up some scheduled, automatic backup from the laptop to the NAS box. Many free tools can do this.

On a folder/file level, SyncBackFree or FreeFileSync
On a whole drive level (highly recommended), Macrium Reflect.

I don't see how its one copy. Since there are 2 hard drives in the NAS so that would be 2 copies as each hard drive is mirrored so if one those 2 goes bad she won't be sol

 

[USAFRet]

I am going by what she wants. Her previous laptop was stolen and then months later the NAS hard drives starting having issues. So she wants each hard drive in the 220 to be mirrored to each other

OK.
But that's still only one actual copy.

Read the user manual for how to create that RAID 1 volume.
Then, set up some scheduled, automatic backup from the laptop to the NAS box. Many free tools can do this.

On a folder/file level, SyncBackFree or FreeFileSync
On a whole drive level (highly recommended), Macrium Reflect.

I don't see how its one copy. Since there are 2 hard drives in the NAS so that would be 2 copies as each hard drive is mirrored so if one those 2 goes bad she won't be sol

Yes. If one physical drive goes bad, you take it out and can still access that file.
But that's the only protection...physical drive fail.

If you were to "delete" a file in that RAID array...on purpose or by accident...it is gone. There is no "second copy" on the other drive.
The user and the OS sees a single file.