I am very new to NAS. I currently have various internal Western Digital 2TB hard drives that store all the house media (movies, music, epub, etc.). They are currently in the living room HTPC. But I don't like the idea of leaving the computer on for long periods of time, just to access these shared files on other devices (phones, laptops, etc.). Hence, my interest in a NAS device. Now the problem I am running into is...as I research certain QNAP & Synology units, I discover in the Amazon Q & A section that they force you to format your existing drives. Meaning, I can't add my existing data drives. I am very confused at this point. So I am seeking your help. Can anyone suggest 2 bay (or more) NAS unit that will simply accept my existing WD drives as-is (without formatting them). Additionally, I do not need "transcoding". I just need to be able to properly share these drives over my home network (through mapping, folder mounting, network places etc.). Let us set the price limit to $450, and not a penny over. Thanks for any help!
Something is not right there. Where are you reading this? If you buy a NAS unit that comes with drives (that is, it is not just an enclosure where you add your own drives) you do NOT have to format your existing drives. That would make no sense at all. With a NAS, you just connect it to your network, then copy the files you want onto the NAS drives. Double check to make sure they copied fine, then you can delete them from your current drives (or keep them there as backups). Now if you buy a diskless NAS, they do require you to install your own drives. And in that case, yes you may need to format them first. But if I were buying one of those, I would buy new drives anyway. How much storage space do you need?
So here is an example from a Synology unit I was browsing: https://www.amazon.com/forum/-/Tx22ZQTDXCB7S2J/ref=ask_ql_ql_al_hza?asin=B019ZUR5WQ The person states that you cannot add drives that are filled with data. I saw a similar answer on another QNAP 4 bay product, but I cannot find the bookmark at the moment. That is why I am really confused. Yes, I am trying to purchase a "Diskless NAS". My goal is to insert drives that are *already filled*. For example, I have 4 existing "WD Green" & "WD Blue" 2TB drives. I do not want to re-format these. I just want to plug them into the NAS and access them via network. I am looking for either a 2-bay or 4/5/6 bay (though I notice these extra bay units cost more than the $450 budget I set for myself).
Now I understand what you mean. That user is right - you cannot install existing drives into this device that already have data on them without formatting the drives. This is because a NAS is basically an entire (but dedicated) computer with its own operating system that uses its own disk file system. So it has to format the drives so it can recognize and use the storage locations. You are going to have to copy the data off your current drives to another location somewhere, install the drives, format, then copy all your data back. Or buy new drives. Then you are going to have to use an external drive, not a NAS. And this external drive will have to be connected to a running computer to be accessed. Now you might check your router. Some support external drives via a USB port but I think a NAS that comes with its own drives, or a diskless NAS where you add your own new drives is the better option.
Oh boy! This is sad to hear. So a follow-up question...suppose I let these NAS devices format my drives. If I ever removed them from the NAS, would I be able to connect them to my Windows computers be able to read their contents? Or are these going to be encrypted/propietary file systems?
I don't believe proprietary, but probably not NTFS compatible. So I would not count on being able to read them with Windows. But I would think they could be formatted again and used with Windows. But I really don't have any expertise in this area and am just going by what I am reading. I have an old computer running Windows XP I use as a NAS. I just have blocked its Internet access in my router to keep it from becoming compromised.
Yes, someone suggested this to me in a previous topic I posted about NAS. At the time, I did not want to do this because of the time it would take to find solutions to: - Smaller Case size - Motherboard with desired SATA ports, sleep/wake, and remote features - Fan noise Now this research will eat up at least a few months of my life lol!
Well, it is not likely I would ever build a new computer just to act as a NAS. I generally build a new computer for myself every 3 - 5 years and then the old computer is repurposed as my backup server/NAS and the previous server/NAS is repurposed again as something else, or donated to a local church. If I needed a new computer just to act as a NAS, backup server or music streamer, I would probably go to Walmart and buy a budget refurbished computer for $300. It takes very little horsepower to support a bunch of drives. All you need is a good network connection, then stick the computer in a remote corner somewhere. As long as there's some ventilation, it should be fine, and out of earshot.
I just wanted to elaborate a bit on the topic. The reason why the multi-drive NAS enclosures generally all require a reformat is to support either standard or proprietary RAID (redundant array of independent disks) configurations. This Synology page helps explain the various RAID types. The basic idea is that with multiple disks you can implement various strategies that increase fault-tolerance, performance, or both. RAID 1 or "mirroring" is probably the only technique that wouldn't absolutely require a format, but you are simply duplicating your disk on a same size secondary disk for pure redundancy and you don't get any additional capacity as the 2nd disk is entirely a copy. RAID 0 or "striping" is a technique where each file write gets split or "striped" across each drive, so you get better write & read performance as both drives are functioning in parallel, but you actually decrease your fault tolerance because now if either drive fails then you've lost your data. The remaining versions combine striping with a "checksum" or "parity" write and generally work only with 3 or more drives. The parity data allows any one of the drives to fail without losing all of your data. You just replace the failed drive, and with the parity data the enclosure can rebuild the failed drive and no data is lost. Additionally most multi-drive NAS enclosures want to treat the combine drive capacity as one logical device unit. So, I'm not aware of any that let you just plug 4 drives in and each component disk is presented as their own independent NAS. There may be one out there, as it certainly not technically impossible... but most people want the added fault-tolerance of one of the RAID schemes if they are using multiple drives. In answer to your follow on question, no... in general it doesn't make sense to try and utilize a single drive once formatted as part of a RAID configuration. As you would only have a piece of the striped / parity data and it would not be complete. The only one in which a single disk would still be usable is RAID 1 or "mirror".
