Hello everyone!
I was recently given a brand new WD MyCloud EX4 4-Bay NAS, already populated with 4 x brand new 3TB WD Red HDD's (NASware 3.0). I can always just pull the drives and install them in some of my other available slots, and sell the NAS Box or utilize it in some other way. But ... my main server box of 15 drives is already full, as is also my only decent exterior storage box of 5 more drives. The only available space I have (if I don't find a way to utilize the WD Box), is an open & exposed 5-Bay Sans Digital Hard Drive Rack that I set up to be just a temporary facility until I could find something better. It only has one drive in it at present, so it could hold all 4 of the drives from the WD NAS box if need be,
However, I would REALLY like to utilize this very nicely constructed WD NAS Box, preferably as-is. Its only method of external communication is Ethernet without me hacking on it to make it SAS compatible, like I did with my AMS NAS Box (see signature details). The WD MyCloud manual says I can configure 1 or all 4 of the drives in JBOD mode. SO ... I could do that and put the box on my Network. What I don't know is if I utilize the drives this way, will DrivePool even SEE them at all? And if DP does see them, will it see them as 4 separate drives, as I would prefer, or just as one 12TB drive? OR ... is there some specific way to set this up such that DP can see and control the drives in the WD Box as if they were 4 separate drives?
Also, all my Pooled drives are mounted like: "Disk01", "Disk02", "Disk19" etc. Naturally I would prefer to be able to do the same for the drives in the WD NAS Box. Would this be possible?
Here are some information Links for this WD NAS Box:
I have spent hours pouring through the WD knowledge base, and various Forums (mostly this one) and I cannot find anything that addresses this specifically. I suspect that what I want can't be done, because (as far as I can see), the only way to access a specific drive behind this NAS Box is to MAP it, which has all the limitations associated with that. I hope I'm wrong, but given my very limited knowledge on this subject, it looks like to me that I might have to do essentially the same thing I did with my AMS NAS Box. This would mean bypassing the NAS electronics portions of the Box and install a SAS 8087-to-8088 adapters to connect the drives semi-directly to the controllers in the main chassis, using something like THIS or THIS and THIS and THIS. Is there such a thing as an Ethernet to SAS converter? (JK) Or maybe, depending on what you guys tell me, I might just keep the drives, sell the Box and buy a more suitable Multi-HDD chassis. I don't know what to do.
If anyone has any experience with doing this or any knowledge, I sure would greatly appreciate some advice.
Thanks so much,
Gary (GDog)
Question
GDog
Hello everyone!
I was recently given a brand new WD MyCloud EX4 4-Bay NAS, already populated with 4 x brand new 3TB WD Red HDD's (NASware 3.0). I can always just pull the drives and install them in some of my other available slots, and sell the NAS Box or utilize it in some other way. But ... my main server box of 15 drives is already full, as is also my only decent exterior storage box of 5 more drives. The only available space I have (if I don't find a way to utilize the WD Box), is an open & exposed 5-Bay Sans Digital Hard Drive Rack that I set up to be just a temporary facility until I could find something better. It only has one drive in it at present, so it could hold all 4 of the drives from the WD NAS box if need be,
However, I would REALLY like to utilize this very nicely constructed WD NAS Box, preferably as-is. Its only method of external communication is Ethernet without me hacking on it to make it SAS compatible, like I did with my AMS NAS Box (see signature details). The WD MyCloud manual says I can configure 1 or all 4 of the drives in JBOD mode. SO ... I could do that and put the box on my Network. What I don't know is if I utilize the drives this way, will DrivePool even SEE them at all? And if DP does see them, will it see them as 4 separate drives, as I would prefer, or just as one 12TB drive? OR ... is there some specific way to set this up such that DP can see and control the drives in the WD Box as if they were 4 separate drives?
Also, all my Pooled drives are mounted like: "Disk01", "Disk02", "Disk19" etc. Naturally I would prefer to be able to do the same for the drives in the WD NAS Box. Would this be possible?
Here are some information Links for this WD NAS Box:
I have spent hours pouring through the WD knowledge base, and various Forums (mostly this one) and I cannot find anything that addresses this specifically. I suspect that what I want can't be done, because (as far as I can see), the only way to access a specific drive behind this NAS Box is to MAP it, which has all the limitations associated with that. I hope I'm wrong, but given my very limited knowledge on this subject, it looks like to me that I might have to do essentially the same thing I did with my AMS NAS Box. This would mean bypassing the NAS electronics portions of the Box and install a SAS 8087-to-8088 adapters to connect the drives semi-directly to the controllers in the main chassis, using something like THIS or THIS and THIS and THIS. Is there such a thing as an Ethernet to SAS converter? (JK) Or maybe, depending on what you guys tell me, I might just keep the drives, sell the Box and buy a more suitable Multi-HDD chassis. I don't know what to do.
If anyone has any experience with doing this or any knowledge, I sure would greatly appreciate some advice.
Thanks so much,
Gary (GDog)
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