Convert to expandable pool after the fact

[Durandle]

If I were to create a pool of two drives (I assume in Raid 1) and later decide I want to move to an expandable pool, will there be an "upgrade" path for doing this, or will I be setting my self up for a headache?

Edited December 2, 2024 by Durandle

[arvinpw]

If you want the expandable capability, the minimum requirement is 3 drives at initial setup.

[Durandle]

That wasn't what I asked though was it 😉 I'm asking if its possible to convert to an expandable pool after initial setup. The wording of the docs suggests "no", but the product is early beta and the real answer might well be "not yet" or "yes, but its complicated".

[TheDesertLad]

I hope so, I plan to use HexOS as a Plex server and I have three 8TB drives currently and planning to add another soon...

[Durandle]

Quite, I have two 12TB drives in RAID1, if I don't buy a third drive, I want to know if I'm going to end up locked in to RAID1 forever more without offloading all content elsewhere and doing a total reset.

[Almeda]

6 hours ago, TheDesertLad said:

I hope so, I plan to use HexOS as a Plex server and I have three 8TB drives currently and planning to add another soon...

If you already have 3 then it's not applicable to you? 3 is the minimum to have an expandable pool so you'll be able to have one from the start.

[Durandle]

The current answer is this:

Quote

Short answer is that right now, no, there is no expandability support for 2 drive configurations.  It will get added in the future, but it won't apply to existing 2-device setups.  For this reason, it is HIGHLY recommended to have a minimum of 3 HDDs for a build.  Now for SSDs, if you don't overpack your HDDs, you can start with 2, then when you want to add a 3rd, we will have an operation that lets you temporarily copy the data from the SSDs to the HDDs, add your new SSD, destroy your old SSD pool, rebuild it with 3 SSDs, then migrate the data back.

 

[Tasche]

changing from a mirrored raid (raid1) to a striped raid (raid5-6) is pretty impossible plug and play. As Durandle said, you'll need to offload your data and rebuild the array.