Add a Larger Drive to an Existing RAID5 Array

[j0hnqd03]

Just got a killer deal from Amazon Warehouse Deals on a used TeraStation TS5400D0404 for $350! Anyway, so it has 4 1TB HDDs. I'm running RAID5, so 1 drive is hot-swappable. For a backup drive, in case 1 of the 4 existing drives goes bad, I would like to use a 4TB drive, because this model can do 16TB of 4, 4TB drives. From my understanding this is not possible. On page 40 of the User Manual under "Notes" under "Adding a drive to an existing RAID array", it says "Each drive must have the same capacity."

 

Will my backup drive have to be 1TB, like the existing drives in the RAID5 array?

 

I was hoping to continually expand this TeraStation to 16TB as drives go bad. I guess the only way to do that is by using JBOD, which incurs data loss, as drives go bad?

[j0hnqd03]

Just an update. I found some http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Terastation_FAQ#What_type_of_drives_are_in_the_TeraStation.3F">encouraging info that states "The hard drives do not need to be replaced with the same manufacturer, but do need to be as large or larger than the original hard drive." So this gives me reason to try a 4TB drive first. I would appreciate an official answer still though. Thanks.

[j0hnqd03]

Still curious if adding larger drives to an existing array is possible through Buffalo's software... Right now I'm running Ubuntu on the Terastation and using https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/advanced-installation.html">LVM over RAID5 which is supposed to allow for https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/advanced-installation.html#lvm-extending">expanding partitions (Volume Groups) on the fly.