Drivestation Duo replacing drive?

[alister]

   

Drive #2 (500GB) failed in my Duo box. I bought two 1TB drives hoping to upgrade it in the end. I unboxed one drive and put it directly into the enclosure and it's been flashing red for 24hrs. I didn't think the RAID rebuilding took this long (nor from the msgs I've read). Is there something I should've done beforehand or missed? My plan was to let this sync and once it was done to put the other 1TB drive in place of the first 500GB drive. THanks.

 

 

[Kameran]

Sorry but we can't support the modification of our drives.  Hopefully someone else has gone through this can give you advice.

[tanjl]

   

1st thing, if you put in a 1tb to resync raid with a 500gb, it will only resyc the 1tb to 500gb.

 

After resyncing, you will replace the 2nd 500gb with a other 1tb, hoping to get 1tb raid but it will not work as it will be resync back to 500gb.

 

Flshing red LED is because you it was not resync.

You need to run a software called Raid Setup Utility which was included in the CD which comes with the Drivestation Duo.

 

 

[alister]

   

It took days (3-4) for the whole process to complete. I am left with the original config of 500GB mirrored however. Any ideas how to get it to expand to the 1TB on each side? My ReadyNAS at home does this so I just assumed the Buffalo enclosure would but it doesn't seem to automatically.

 

[LeeBinder]

Hi Alister,

 

I am exactly where you were at right now, 2 x 250GB expanding to 2 x 500GB RAID Mirror. Process started this morning, red LED blinking.

 

How did you eventually solve it - did you manage to get the partition expanded with a partition tool?

 

Thanks,

Lee

 

PS: I really think you Buffalos should support this kind of operation because it can be considered standard (putting in bigger HDs)

 

[alister]

Hey Lee-

 

I'm pretty surprised they don't support replacing of failed hardware either even though there are instructions on how to disassemble the unit of all things. I've since switched brands for my other offices' storage needs.

 

Regardless, I did not ever get it expanded. I had planned on using something like Partition Magic but haven't had the need to do so yet. Good luck!

 

[LeeBinder]

The RAID controller or its firmware (or both) in the Buffalo DS Duo HD-WIU2 (2 x 250GB) does NOT support auto-resize if a bigger HD is inserted (and the 2nd bigger HD in a consecutive step). Here's how I got bigger HDs working in it in RAID1 mode anyway:

 

1) disconnected Buffalo, opened case, took both HDs out, connected one via SATA USB adapter and made sure the data was readable even outside of RAID structure

 

2) put new bigger HDs into Buffalo case, connected, fired up. Ran RAID Setup Utility AS ADMIN (Win7), set mode to normal. Verified desired effect in Windows Disk Management, unmounted Buffalo, turned off

 

3) Turned Buffalo back on, restarted RAID Setup Utility, re-enabled RAID1, again verified desired effect in Windows Disk Management

 

4) cloned old HD (in SATA-USB case) to new bigger RAID in Buffalo (with Paragon Hard Disk Manager, but other tools like R-Drive Image or the ones from Acronis or even Norton Ghost should work, too)

 

So now I have 465GB in RAID1 mode available in my (rather old) HD-WIU2 :)

 

[blue_avatar]

Hi, I just asked a question to buffalo tech support about upgrading the capacity of my drivestation duo from 2x500GB to 2x1TB, and received a perplexing reply.  Wanted to post here to get some comments/ideas...

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Original question:
> Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my Drivestation Duo which currently has 2x500GB
drives in it.  I'm thinking of putting 2x1TB drives ... any issues/tips I should
be aware of?  Do the drive types matter?  Should they match exactly or can be
different models?  What about spindle speeds -- the same?  I plan to put these in
a mirror configuration.
>
> Thanks for your help.

 

Perplexing reply:

We cannot support the replacing of hard drives with larger ones, as the firmware
is on the drives. So not only would you void any warranty you have but you risk
rendering the unit inaccessible.

Thank you,

Seth
Buffalo Technical Support

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Is this true?  This implies the drives inside are specialized?  If yes, how would I go about replacing one?  (I asked this question back to the tech support rep).

 

Thanks in advance for any insights/clarifications.

[alister]

See Lee's prior post. You'll be fine though.

 

[blue_avatar]

Thanks, yes I was encouraged by Lee's post and confused by the Buffalo tech support person.  Lee's post makes much more sense :-)

[tanjl]

You can replace the drives inside the Drivestation Duo to a bigger capacity ones.

 

There is no firmwares on the drives.

 

That is only on the NAS series.

 

Drivestation Duo is not a NAS, it s a DAS so no firmware needed.

 

I've replaced mine with 2tb X 2 and then run the raid utility and there's no problem at all.

 

 

[phelycs]

Allright, I can definitely confirm, that the Drivestation Duo works with 2 TB drives. I upgraded 4 enclosures to the total amount of 16 TB (!!!) and uses this in a software raid 10 via Mac OS. 

 

The Raid-Mode 1 inside the Drivestation and the Normal-Mode are working. The Spanning-Mode creates one volume of 1.8 TB, no idea why.

 

I used 8 Seagates ST2000DL003 with the CC32 firmware. And these babies are as fast as hell.......

 

Best, Felitsche

[dreaminspirer]

I'm planning to put 2x2Tb to the Duo too . But since I upgraded my windows 7, I don't have the setup file & the RAID utility anymore, downloading from buffalo website resulted in INVALID Page X( . Could someone please share the lastest versions with me ? Many thanks

[dreaminspirer]

Someone help me please ... it's just an installation file.

 

Cheers,

 

[drmemory]

You need to download from your local Buffalotech site. Yours would be http://www.buffalo-asia.com/vietnam/" target="_self">HERE