Change drives in 559 Pro II

[GHQ]

Hey all.

I have search Google and yes there is a lot of different opinions out there so not to do anything wrong i will try ask here also.

I have a good working TS-559 Pro II running RAID5 fine with 5 x 3TB disc's but 2 of the drives is standard consumer drives and i now have 2 more WD Red disc's i would like to change in the system.
How do i do this the most easy but also safe way

Can i just pull out one of the disc and put in a new one wile NAS is still running or do i need to shut down and change one disc at a time and turn back on ?

TS-559 Pro II RAID 5 latest firmware 4.2.6 (Sad no newer FW) but thats life, i'm only using my NAS for storage/file sharing and its doing alright but as i said i'm afraid the 2 standard disc will die on me
so now when i have to extra better WD Red disc i think i should swop them.

Thx everyone.

 

[Twiglets]

There are a number of questions that need to be asked first.

1. Is this NAS backed up ?
2. If not, do you have a means to do so ? i.e. some form of reliable tape backup etc that you can test to confirm the validity of the backup .

As you will have found out by browsing the internet there are many stories of RAID datasets being damaged in the process of adding new drives to existing RAID systems, usually when using consumer grade drives.

If the drives are *GOOD* it *should* work OK to add a new drive to re-build the RAID dataset ... BUT the problem is the word *should* !!!
You are already unsure about the consumer drives in use, it might possibly stress them too much to add a better quality drive not once but twice.

For my own piece of mind I would *much* prefer to have a good & verified backup before I do anything potentially dangerous (to my data).

If the process works ... all is good ... but I would have the insurance of having the data backed up *IF* the process fails because a drive or two fails.

Never had a problem using proper enterprise level kit (Big money), *with* the data backed up anyway.

I am sure that there are people who will shoot me down for being too risk-averse, but 'I told you so' is not very useful if the worse should happen.