User Manual

Table Of Contents
Add Protection to a Volume
You can set up protection against disk failure. The types of protection available depend
on the number of hard disks installed in the ReadyNAS system.
Adding Protection to an X-RAID Volume
X-RAID requires a minimum of two hard disks to provide protection against disk failure.
To add protection from disk failure to a one-disk ReadyNAS storage system, you must
add a second disk that is at least as large as the first. You can add it while the system is
running. For more information about how to add a disk to your system, see the hardware
manual for your system, which is available at
https://www.netgear.com/support/product/ReadyNAS_OS_6.aspx.
An X-RAID volume that includes two or more disks is automatically formatted to protect
against the failure of one disk. Except for very large ReadyNAS systems (for example
12-bay systems), if you want to protect your data against the failure of two disks, you
must switch to Flex-RAID and select RAID 6. (Very large ReadyNAS systems use RAID 6
when there are only 5 drives in a system.) To use RAID 6, install 7 or more disk on factory
default. For more information about how to switch to Flex-RAID, see Change from
X-RAID to Flex-RAID on page 29.
Adding Protection to a Flex-RAID Volume
In certain cases, you can add a disk to a Flex-RAID volume to increase data protection.
The following table indicates whether adding a disk for data protection is possible for
each Flex-RAID configuration.
Table 3. Flex-RAID levels and data protection
Can I add a disk to for data protection?RAID
Level
Number of Disks per Volume
Yes. Converts to RAID 1. (Additional disk
provides redundancy.)
JBOD1
No. (Volume protection is already
redundant.)
RAID 12
Yes. Converts to RAID 5.RAID 02 or more
Yes. (Additional disk provides dual
redundancy and converts the volume to
RAID 6.)
RAID 53 or more
Software Manual42Volume Configuration
ReadyNAS OS 6.10