Anyone have experience with QNAP Expansion Units?

[DQ]

So I am trying to plan for the future here as my 6 slot NAS has 6 drives in it. I can either buy new drives and replace the current ones or buy an expansion unit and still use my current investment in drives as well. Seems to me it makes more sense to get an expansion unit for my current NAS.

There is a nice 8 slot unit available for expansion. But what I cannot seem to figure out through their docs is whether I can simply expand my current pool with an expansion or of it has to be its own unit or what other limitations there might be. QNAP info speaks a lot about what the unit can do on it's own and little about what it can do paired with a NAS unit.

I know some of you have expansion units so I thought I would ask what is technically available and what may or may not be practical in your experience.

Thanks.

 

[Watcher0363]

No, you can not expand your current pool to the expansion unit. If you are expanding by using a DAS, the DAS will show up on your Nas as an external device. You can configure a lot of the DAS functions through the NAS. But you will have to set up different pools on the DAS. Also keep in mind, depending on what QNAP OS you are running. The drives formatted in the NAS will not readable in the DAS without an exfat reader. And the Das formatted drives will not be readable in the NAS.

 

[cartman0208]

Interesting ... from what I read on a first glance on some Synology forums it's possible there to expand the pool over two devices.
But that's highly unadvisable... in case one of the devices fails, the whole pool is messed up.
That should be the same for QNAP.

 

[DQ]

Well logically I think it makes sense NOT to expand a pool beyond a unit. So that leaves me with making another pool on a different unit whether it be a DAS or another NAS. Might make more sense to just replace the current drives with larger ones and retire the well used drives. It is costly either way.

 

[DrXenos]

Interesting ... from what I read on a first glance on some Synology forums it's possible there to expand the pool over two devices.
But that's highly unadvisable... in case one of the devices fails, the whole pool is messed up.
That should be the same for QNAP.

The literature for the QNAP expansion units says, "...can only be used as an individual storage pool or volume on the NAS. Its storage pool or volume cannot be combined into the connected NAS."