Installing drives into NAS without formatting?

MG42Maniac · 19 Dec 2014 at 17:24

Hi Guys,

Quick question, is it possible to do this? I've just purchased a D-LINK DNS-345 and want to take the drives out of my HTPC and place them in there.

I have 2TB, 3TB and 4TB drives that are all nearly full. I was under the impression that you simple inserted them into the NAS and away you go. However some Googling has revealed this is not the case due to file formatting. Am I going to have to buy another 4TB to act as a transfer buffer or is there another way which avoids writing over 10TB of data?

Cheers!

bledd · 19 Dec 2014 at 21:14

Do you not have backups of this data?

BlackAle · 19 Dec 2014 at 21:56

If the drives are currently formatted as EXT4 then I'd guess it's possible, assuming you don't plan to RAID them.

I do think it's unlikely though.

MG42Maniac · 20 Dec 2014 at 19:23

bledd. said:
Do you not have backups of this data?

No, it's just Movies and TV Shows so nothing worth backing up. I have the important stuff backed up though.

BlackAle said:
If the drives are currently formatted as EXT4 then I'd guess it's possible, assuming you don't plan to RAID them.

I do think it's unlikely though.

I've had to format them

I ended up buying a another 4TB (which I was going to need soon) so I am transferring onto that. Once I've done this I will wipe the old 4TB drive, add it to the NAS and start to transfer content from the old 3TB drive. Will be a long process but I'll get there in the end!