[Discussion] F2-423 + TOS6 + D6-320 [SOLVED]

[Nikdfish]

This is a pre purchase question. I have a F2-423 running TOS 6. If I add a D6-320, can I use TOS 6 to configure the D6-320 drives as a TRAID? If I start with 3 drives can it be expanded later by adding or replacing drives?

Are there any things (operations/constraints) that would be different because of the use of the external USB device rather than an NAS with the same drives? My biggest concerns would be in regard to future expansion and rebuilds associated with replacing a failed drive.

[crisisacting]

This is a pre purchase question. I have a F2-423 running TOS 6. If I add a D6-320, can I use TOS 6 to configure the D6-320 drives as a TRAID? If I start with 3 drives can it be expanded later by adding or replacing drives?

Are there any things (operations/constraints) that would be different because of the use of the external USB device rather than an NAS with the same drives? My biggest concerns would be in regard to future expansion and rebuilds associated with replacing a failed drive.

Someone else asked a similar question on an older model with older TOS 5.× in 2023 @ viewtopic.php?p=29353#p29353 & TerraMaster staff didn't respond within that thread.

Since your example would just be a storage pool within the TDAS only & not combining TNAS drives with the TDAS drives for an expanded pool over multiple interfaces, it should be possible to initialize a storage pool using TRAID this way.

Hopefully, this time, TerraMaster staff do see & respond with a clear answer to your inquiry.

[TMnick]

This is a pre purchase question. I have a F2-423 running TOS 6. If I add a D6-320, can I use TOS 6 to configure the D6-320 drives as a TRAID? If I start with 3 drives can it be expanded later by adding or replacing drives?

Are there any things (operations/constraints) that would be different because of the use of the external USB device rather than an NAS with the same drives? My biggest concerns would be in regard to future expansion and rebuilds associated with replacing a failed drive.

Hello, sorry to have kept you waiting. Now I'm here to answer your questions above.

You can configure the hard drives in the D6-320 as TRAID.
You can expand the storage by adding or replacing hard drives in the future.
Regarding the differences between built-in hard drives and external USB devices: The external ones are not as stable as the built-in ones. Operations like plugging and unplugging hard drives may affect the storage pool.

[Nikdfish]

Just a followup, I ended up buying a D4-320 and starting with just one drive. The F2-423 easily allowed me to initialize that drive as a btrfs formatted TRAID and add that as a new NAS volume. I plan on expanding the new TRAID by adding a disk each month until full.

[Nikdfish]

Things are working well. Replaced one 8TB drive with a 12TB drive on the F2-423 then added that 8TB drive to the attached D4-320. Did both operations as hot swaps & both resulted in successful rebuilds of the TRAID volumes with their new drives & continuation of normal operations