Promise NS4300N RAID 1 to RAID 10 Migration

[TLDunbar]

I have a Promise Technology SmartStor 4-bay NS4300N with 2 2TB Hitachi SATA HDDs in a RAID 1 configuration. I have added 2 more 2TB Hitachi drives and wish to migrate to a RAID 10 configuration. I have seen internet claims that certain NAS storage units support migrating from a 2 disk RAID 1 to a 4 disk RAID 10 but Promise Technology claims it cannot be done with the NS4300N except by saving all the existing files to another system, then creating an empty RAID 10 and copying the files back. Intuitively, it would seem to be a simple migration without having to go through the process of locating the space elsewhere followed by the time-consuming copy out and copy back. Does anyone know if this is possible with the NS4300N and the procedure for doing so if it is possible. TIA

 

[thecoolnessrune]

According to the manual, the only thing you can do with a RAID 1 array is migrate to a RAID 5 array. RAID 10 has to be created from the beginning, and does not allow any on-the-fly creation or changing to a different RAID level.

If you insist on creating a RAID 10 array, then yes, you'll have to move all the data off, then back again.

The information on this is on page 161 in your manual.

 

[TLDunbar]

Thanks for the quick response.
I had read the SmartStor manual and had talked to the Promise tech support and knew the position of both. But since I had found that other brand NAS units supported the migration from RAID 1 to 10, I hoped someone had figured out how it could be done with the SmartStor without the dual copying of 2TBs of files.