Solved Storage Threads

[redcarrot]

I owe Linkstation Quad LS-QL 4x500GB (total 2TB) with RAID-5 configuration (total of 1.5TB starage).

Can I expand this space by replacing the drives to 4x1TB without losing/moving my data.

Can I replace 1 drive, wait for array to rebuild and then repeat this step 3 more times with the rest of the drives?

Would that recognize the whole space on the new drive giving me 4x1TB (total of 3TB RAID-5 storage)?

Please advise.

[Jotin]

Neither of those options will work. You cannot upgrade the drives. It will void your warranty and isn't supported. Even if you did that if replace all 4 drives at once you would lose your data and potentially brick your unit. The second option wouldn't work either because the raid would just rebuild the drive into the raid only using the size of the previous disks. The only size expansion option you have would be to attach an external USB drive to the front and format it in xfs

[redcarrot]

Can you explain more why replacing all 4 drives at the same time would "potentially brick" my buffalo???

I thought that this model support up to 8TB of space - 4x more than my current drives. Considering that buffalo is supposed to have hot-swappable drives  I cannot think of a reason why replacing all 4 during shutdown would make damage to my unit. I'm a working professional and have contact with more advanced NAS devices everday - never heard of issues with upgrading hard drives to bigger sizes.

Also - if drives are hot-swappable - why replacing the drive would void my warranty? (not that I'm concerned with this at all - just asking) :-)

[Jotin · Accepted solution]

The drives in LS QL are not hot swappable. When you remove all 4 drives at once the unit will lose its firmware and the RAID will be gone. Only units LS-Q8.0TL/R5 support 8TB's. Replacing one drive will not void your warranty but replacing all of them with higher sizes will. If you put a 2TB drive in there when the rest are 500 GB, then the new disk will only have 500GB's used and the reset of the space will not be accessible. Buffalo does not support upgrading the hard drives on any of their units. 

[redcarrot]

Makes sense. Thx.