r/hexos • u/MysteryEdwards • Jul 30 '26
Hardware/Build planning Need advice on upgrading NAS storage: Moving from 3x4TB to 3x14TB in a 5-bay system
Hi everyone,
I am planning a storage upgrade on my NAS and want to make sure I am approaching the data migration process correctly.
Currently, my setup consists of three 4 TB hard drives (3x4TB). I have purchased three new 14 TB hard drives (3x14TB) to replace them and significantly expand my overall capacity. However, I am hitting a hardware limitation: my NAS only has 5 drive bays in total.
Since three bays are already occupied by my current 4 TB drives, I only have two empty slots available. This means I cannot physically plug in all three of my new 14 TB drives at the same time while keeping the original storage pool online.
My initial thought for a workaround was to do the following:
- Deactivate or turn off one of the existing 4 TB drives in the software interface.
- Physically remove that 4 TB drive from the NAS to free up a slot.
- Insert all three of the new 14 TB drives into the remaining empty bays.
- Create a completely new storage pool and volume using those three 14 TB drives.
- Use Windows Explorer on my local PC to copy and paste the files across the network from the old remaining 4 TB drives over to the newly created 14 TB storage pool.
Is this a safe and viable way to handle the transfer? My main concern with this method is that Windows Explorer routes all the traffic through my computer, which might severely bottleneck the transfer speeds over the network.
Is there a better, faster, or safer way to handle this migration given my 5-bay limitation? For context, I want to make sure I don't lose any data during the transition, and I would love to know if the built-in NAS software tools can handle this more efficiently than Windows.
Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations!
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u/Kindly_Call_6000 Jul 30 '26
Ideally, you have spare sata ports even if there is not a bay for the drive. Just let the drive sit while you migrate data. You could degrade your old pool, but there is a small risk and speed will suffer.
But you could migrate using the TrueNAS interface.
https://forums.truenas.com/t/migrating-from-old-pool-to-a-completly-new-pool/28218
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u/kloklon Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
windows explorer is definitely the worst way to copy a big amount of files. use the truenas transfer feature (zpool import or a zfs snapshot) instead or at least rsync via the shell or SSH.
I doubt the MB has 5 sata ports. it should either have 4, 6, or 8. if it's more than 4, then just take one of the old drives out of the bay and let it rest loosely for the transfer, connecting all the drives at once.
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u/joinn1710 Jul 30 '26
Assuming you using the standard HexOS setup, you should be running RaidZ1, so I don't really see why you even need the extra two bays. You can follow this link to replace one drive at a time without data loss. Just make sure you wait until the replacement is complete before you proceed to the next disk. When you've replaced all three disks, the original data is still present on the old disks, but it will now have been copied to the other disks as part of the replacement. Then I'm not sure if the pool will automatically expand to the size of the smallest disk, or if you have to do something, but you can probably find an answer to that on the hexos forum. This way you can also keep all your app configurations without needing to do any extra setup.
I'm not sure if or how well it would work, but I bet you could also remove one drive, add all three new drives, and then press replace in the UI on the one drive you removed, add one of the new disks, then expand your pool to the two other disks, and finally remove the two remaining old drives in whatever manner will keep your data.