August 24, 20214 yr Hello, this is my first time posting on this forum and I'm new to the world of NAS. After some research, I want to try unraid OS for 30 days. Base on the docs, it is recommended to start with 1 parity drive and 1 data drive. But in my case, I don't have the budget to do this upfront. Now the question, can I start with only 1 HDD as data drive with no parity or use that 1 HDD as parity with no data drive? Sorry I'm new to this. If I start with 1 data drive with no parity drive, then my data/files are not protected. If I buy larger hdd for parity, say 5 months from now, can I just install this and protect my data without losing data on my data drive? Because I heard that if I change the array, my data will be lost but I think it's referring to the other NAS OS. Thank you.
August 24, 20214 yr Community Expert 20 minutes ago, HHUBS said: can I start with only 1 HDD as data drive with no parity Yes 21 minutes ago, HHUBS said: buy larger hdd for parity, say 5 months from now, can I just install this and protect my data without losing data on my data drive? Yes. Parity doesn't have to be any larger than the largest data drive.
August 24, 20214 yr Author 5 minutes ago, trurl said: Parity doesn't have to be any larger than the largest data drive. Thank you for your answer but wait.. what? I thought parity should be the largest of all the drive? I'm confuse now.
August 24, 20214 yr Community Expert 24 minutes ago, HHUBS said: Thank you for your answer but wait.. what? I thought parity should be the largest of all the drive? I'm confuse now. It must be at least equal to the largest data drive - just cannot be smaller. Many people install a larger parity drive as part of future planning so at a later date they can install larger data drives.
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