Adding a single drive & new firmware update

[tek_01]

Hey guys before i go ahead and lose all my data like when I initially bought the NAS and inserted 4 drives in there with data on them which wiped them without asking, Thought id ask first :)

Basically i have the  LS QVL R5 4 bay NAS with 4x 2tb drives in there. Running f/w 1.68 atm
The drives are set up in XFS as Single Drives.
If i were to remove 1 drive and insert another drive, will it just come up as a single unformatted drive which i can just go to the settings menu and format ? Or will it do something silly and erase them all and put them into 1 big raid array again or whatever it done the first time?

Also just confirming that this device can take 4tb drives? was thinking of getting the WD reds or seagate 7200rpms 

Finally, should i do the f/w update from 1.68 to 1.7? Is it advised to backup just "in case" or does it actually wipe the device?

Thanks in advance

[davo]

Backup is recommended AT ALL times. Simple as that. RAID IS NOT a backup.

What RAID mode are you using?

[tek_01]

They are set up as 4 separate single drives
No raid

[tek_01]

So has anyone ever done this on single drives (non raid setup)?
Do I have to "remove disk" in the options or can I just put new one in and format ?

[Texturtle]

I would recommend you use the remove disk option. Also, keep in mind that this unit does not support hot swap.