Multiple disks with a single volume without RAID

[EscapeYourMind]

Hello,

Is it possible to have a single logical volume that spans multiple disks without using RAID or JBOD?

I have a Synology DS414 for my home network and I don't really need, or even want to use, RAID. I do not need the redundancy it provides since I am ok with my data being inaccessible if things go wrong. I plan on having a backup strategy (May have questions about this at a future date, but my original plan is to have a 2nd DS414 and Time Backup to it) to restore my data. My other reasons for not wanting to use RAID are because I want to maximize space and don't want a drive failure to potentially cause a loss of everything on the primary DS414 (array rebuild causing another drive failure).

However, the one thing I do want is for everything to appear as a single volume to devices that access the NAS. I have media directories that contain more than a single disk can hold and I don't want to have to manage multiple directories across multiple disks. Which leads back to my question: Can I have a single volume span multiple disks without RAID?

Thanks!

 

[stevech]

Hello,

Is it possible to have a single logical volume that spans multiple disks without using RAID or JBOD?

I have a Synology DS414 for my home network and I don't really need, or even want to use, RAID. I do not need the redundancy it provides since I am ok with my data being inaccessible if things go wrong. I plan on having a backup strategy (May have questions about this at a future date, but my original plan is to have a 2nd DS414 and Time Backup to it) to restore my data. My other reasons for not wanting to use RAID are because I want to maximize space and don't want a drive failure to potentially cause a loss of everything on the primary DS414 (array rebuild causing another drive failure).

However, the one thing I do want is for everything to appear as a single volume to devices that access the NAS. I have media directories that contain more than a single disk can hold and I don't want to have to manage multiple directories across multiple disks. Which leads back to my question: Can I have a single volume span multiple disks without RAID?

Thanks!

yes, but not advised.

 

[EscapeYourMind]

So realistically my only option for presenting all of my media as a single volume, instead of multiples like Movies1, Movies2, Movies3, etc would be to use RAID?

 

[canuckle]

As far as not losing storage availability, you can use Raid 0, also referred to as a striped raid. All storage available I'm pretty sure, but stevech has more experience with it. Steve, you can run Raid 0 on more than 2 discs, right?

i won't argue your reasoning on not wanting a parity drive taking up storage, but, in a 4 bay drive you can still have at least 9 TB available (Raid 5 x 4 discs, 1 disk for data protection). If you have a backup solution you're covered.

 

[EscapeYourMind]

Yes you can raid 0 more than 2 drives. I know raid 0 would provide all available storage, but it has the problem of taking down the whole array if a drive dies, similar to JBOD I believe. What I was after was having the benefit of multiple disks appearing as a single logical volume, but if a disk or 2 or 3 dies, I would still be able to have full access to the other drives.

However it is looking like that isn't easily possible, and doesn't appear to be possible at all within a synology NAS. I guess I just need to make the decision between individual disks with increased file management, and just going with raid 5 and sacrificing some space for a single volume management.

 

[stevech]

So realistically my only option for presenting all of my media as a single volume, instead of multiples like Movies1, Movies2, Movies3, etc would be to use RAID?

Synology hybrid RAID would use multiple drives. I chose not to do that because of backup issues and I have only a 2 drive NAS. So the second drive is kept as a separate volume, not RAID1, so that I have protection on the 2nd volume as backup. For drive failure, file system corruption (which is why I don't like JBOD), human error (delete oops).

 

[EscapeYourMind]

Synology hybrid RAID would use multiple drives. I chose not to do that because of backup issues and I have only a 2 drive NAS. So the second drive is kept as a separate volume, not RAID1, so that I have protection on the 2nd volume as backup. For drive failure, file system corruption (which is why I don't like JBOD), human error (delete oops).

It looks like I am currently doing it the same way, and for the same reasons. I only have 2 drives in my DS414 right now. They are setup as individual volumes and time backup from one to the other. I have been trying to plan for when I get the other 2 drives which sort of prompted this thread.

It looks like once I get fully setup with a 2nd DS414 for backup, I will just use synology's hybrid raid on both of them and use time backup between them to cover myself in case the primary array goes down.