Splitting an expanded Raid 0 volume in Synology so that it can be backed up to three smaller hard drives?

[deaditelord]

Hello Everyone,

I recently bought a 4 bay Synology that I'm going to use to store my media files. Given that the total amount of data is going to be around 15 TB, I purchased six hard drives (6 TB each). My initial plan was to use three of the 6 TB hard drives for the media files, then use the other three hard drives to create a full backup that would be stored offsite. Since I don't want to give up any hard drive space using Raid 1, Raid 5, etc., I assumed that I would need to create a basic (no raid) volume for the media files on each hard drive and then back each one up using the other three hard drives.

However, I wanted to ask about the possibility of creating a single expanded volume of approximately 18 TB across the three hard drives using Raid 0. I'm pretty sure I can do that with the Synology and I like the idea of having a single expanded volume. However, I'm wondering how I would go about backing up that single expanded volume with the remaining three hard drives? Is there a way to split the expanded volume equally into 3 parts when backing it up so that each part would fit on my three remaining hard drives? I'm assuming not, but figured I'd ask since I have no experience working with Raid or expanded volumes.

 

[USAFRet]

The Syn should allow an entire 'volume' to be presented to the client systems as a single entity, without RAID 0.
I know my Qnap does.

And no, you can't split the data on each member of a RAID volume for individual backups.

And a RAID 0 is a really bad idea.

 

[deaditelord]

The Syn should allow an entire 'volume' to be presented to the client systems as a single entity, without RAID 0.
I know my Qnap does.

And no, you can't split the data on each member of a RAID volume for individual backups.

And a RAID 0 is a really bad idea.

From what I'm reading, it sounds like the only way I can expand a volume across multiple hard drives on the Synology and still maintain all my hard drive space is Raid 0 and something I just read about called JBOD. I'm assuming JBOD would also not allow to split the data on the expanded volume evenly so I could back it up on the smaller hard drives?

 

[USAFRet]

The Syn should allow an entire 'volume' to be presented to the client systems as a single entity, without RAID 0.
I know my Qnap does.

And no, you can't split the data on each member of a RAID volume for individual backups.

And a RAID 0 is a really bad idea.

From what I'm reading, it sounds like the only way I can expand a volume across multiple hard drives on the Synology and still maintain all my hard drive space is Raid 0 and something I just read about called JBOD. I'm assuming JBOD would also not allow to split the data on the expanded volume evenly so I could back it up on the smaller hard drives?

My Qnap is a RAID 5. 4 x 4TB drives.
It presents to the client systems and users as a single volume.
It would be the same if it were a JBOD, RAID 1, RAID 10, whatever.

For the 'backups', I could (and do) designate specific folders within that volume to go to individual USB connected drives.
This happens in the NAS OS.

For instance...
I have 4 other drives, connected to the NAS in a USB 4 bay enclosure.
From the NAS, folder Movie1 (movies labeled A-L) get backed up to "MovieDrive1" (3TB HDD)
Movies labeled M-Z (folder Movie2) go to "MovieDrive2"
All others get backed up to an 8TB drive.

 

[deaditelord]

Ah okay, so I select JBOD, expand the volume to accommodate the hard drives, add my folders/files to that expanded volume and then finally create my backups by selecting which folders I want backed up to each hard drive. That makes sense and I would have the backup data if the JBOD fails. Thank you for your help USAFRet!

 

[deaditelord]

I was about to create the JBOD for my three hard drives, but realized that there were two other things I needed to verify.

1. In a JBOD with three hard drives of equal size, what happens when my first hard drive that is almost full is presented with a new file that is too big to fit in the drive? I'm assuming it will skip the first hard drive since it doesn't have enough room for the file and store it on the second hard drive since it has enough room for the file, but wanted to make sure.

2. Normally with individual drives it's recommended to leave about 10% of free space available on each drive. Is there a way to set up a JBOD so that it leaves 10% free space on each of my three hard drives or do I just leave 10% of the spanned volume unused (i.e. 10% of hard drive 3 would contain no data)?

Thanks again for all you help!