JBOD question relating to hard drive formatting

jackmeehan

Hi all,

I currently have a 2tb lacie external hard drive. It is just 1x2tb hard drive as opposed to 2x1tb hard drives.

The hard drive is now full and I am looking to upgrade my storage. I opened the case and removed the hard drive to find out it's make and model, after doing so I ordered an identical hard drive and a dual HDD SATA enclosure. I plan to have the 2x2tb hard drives set up in JBOD in the new enclosure.

My question is, do I have to format my hard drive first to allow both hard drives to be used in JBOD or can I leave all my data on it, as I have nowhere to backup 2tb of data in the meantime. I hope I've been clear and I hope someone can help me.

Thanks in advance,

Jack

spider guardian

I would imagine that JBODing the two drives would delete all the data on your first one, you should probably back up all the data first before attempting this. If you don't have the storage to do this then I wouldn't bother. Use the new drive as normal.

jackmeehan

If I set up a master/slave config like you originally suggested would the drives show up as 2x2tb or 1x4tb on the computer? Ideally I would like 1x4tb

spider guardian

Yes, a master-slave set up will have two separate drives appear. May I again emphasise that trying to change anything to do with disk partitions could very well affect your data. Ensure your data is backed up before attempting any sort of JBODing or re-partitioning.

jackmeehan

Thanks for your reply. I understand that my data is at risk if I set up JBOD without backing up first but I do not have the space to backup 2tb of data. Is there any /safe/ way to make the two drives appear as one?

spider guardian

I am willing to be corrected on this but I know of no safe to way to maintain data whilst JBODing your drives.

jackmeehan

I may find somewhere to backup all my files before I attempt this then. Thanks very much for your help