WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra versus WD My Cloud Mirror (2022 version)

[degrub]

Or a usb 3 enclosure even.
Be sure and mark the drives where you can see it without pulling from the raid enclosure. Copy serial, model, firmware numbers down. Just so you can pull the correct drive if one fails and you have no other indication externally.

 

[NAS8TB]

Or a usb 3 enclosure even.
Be sure and mark the drives where you can see it without pulling from the raid enclosure. Copy serial, model, firmware numbers down. Just so you can pull the correct drive if one fails and you have no other indication externally.

Great idea. Thanks!

 

[NAS8TB]

Well, you just have to remove 1 from the R1 setup and strip the raid info from the disk and then copy the remaining member info to the drive.

i.e. format the drive you want to use JBOD and then copy data to it.

mdadm is rhe linux version for raid and there's some helpful info in there for messing around with things such as using the "missing" option to create a raid that requires multiuple drives to allow for making the raid and then copying the data into the disk and then converting the disk source to raid / adding it to the array.

The thing about NAS boxes off the shelf though that worries me is what will it do when you first insert the drive. Will it wipe it / add it / sync it or will it leave it alone and let you configure / manipulate it prior to doing anything. With linux it doesn't do much until you tell it to do something.

I don't know any NAS that will read existing data off a drive. They (usually) all want to format the drives first (and sync them if setting up RAIDx).

If you want any chance of getting to your data, install the drive into a desktop computer and hope when you boot up, the drive is available then.

Great points. Just to be safe, I'm ordering another HD and connect to my HP desktop and create another backup before I touch the NAS. I may end up keeping the workable 8TB WD MyCloud as is in its casing and attach it to the network separate from my new NAS.

 

[L&LD]

That is the best possible move forward. Never bring down a working system.