Setup RAID Volume on WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra NAS system

2018-01-13


Do you use NAS (Network Attached Storage)? We often see a NAS system in a company, but more and more NAS are used in a home currently. NAS is a kind of digital files storage so its main function is file backup, but also a NAS provides other functions such as media server, download, file sharing… etc..

There is another important reason why people need NAS but not an external hard drive is because using NAS we can set storage mode as RAID which can bring us data redundancy so that data can be “copied and saved” on multiple logic units or hard drivers.  

So when we buy a new NAS, the first thing is setting the storage RAID volume. Here we have a case of setup RAID volume on WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra.

Setup RAID volume on WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra

Note:

- Changing the RAID mode will erase all of the data on the drives !!!.

  • These drives will not be accessible while the RAID array is being created.

 

1: Login your local WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra with your Admin account;

2: Under Storage menu, select RAID, then click Set up RAID Mode button:

image 3: Select a RAID mode: Now select a RAID mode. Here we have 4 modes: If you want your hard drive can be used as maximum storage size but you don’t care you have a duplicate data copying, you might select JBOD mode; If your data is very important and you want your data safe, you can select RAID 1 which is a “mirror” mode data backup, data will be saved on both of Hard Drives.  _ -  JBOD The use of one or more drives not in a RAID configuration but managed as separate logical volumes. _ _ - Spanning Combination of drives in a linear fashion to create one large logical volume._ _ - RAID 0 RAID 0 mode provides disk striping across all drives in the RAID drive group. RAID 0 does not provide data redundancy but does provide the best performance of any RAID levels. RAID 0 breaks up data into smaller segments and stripes the data segments across each drive in the drive group. _ _- RAID 1 In RAID 1 mode, the RAID controller duplicates all data from one drive to a second drive in the drive group. RAID 1 provides complete data redundancy but cuts the required storage capacity in half._ image 4: My Cloud EX2 Ultra now start to DST – Drive Self Test. If testing is OK, you will see below screen: image   5: Do not change when you see “specify RAID size”, just let all hard drive storage be used by your NAS, unless otherwise you can change slider so that you remain some space for future Spanning; 6: Set Auto Rebuild so that NAS can automatically rebuild the RAID if it becomes corrupted and once the disk is recognized image 7: Select encrypt your RAID volume if you want to protect your data from unauthorized access and theft, and you need to input your encrypt password. Also, you can setup automatically mount volumes so that you do not have to enter encryption password repeatly when NAS boot up; image   8: Clicked 1 or 2 Next button, NAS will start to format your hard drives: image You will have to wait until the entire formatting process finished. Please do not close web browser page before you see the following screen: image   9: Now you click Close button if you see above screen, which indicate the RAID Volume setup done. You will see your Storage page like the screen below: image Now you can continue to set other options and enjoy your NAS system!