[Phoenix32]

David, why do people insist on making this harder or more complicated than it is?

I have done this several hundred times with various GOS revision, hard disk brands, and hard disk sizes without a problem, so listen up.

This is a simple step by step that assumes you do not want to keep your current data (or have backed it up elsewhere). It also assumes you have a working GOS on the unit.

I do break the current data raid before I start, but not always and you don't have to because once you remove the drives as I describe here, its gone anywise. I just do it so I don't get errors in the log telling me it blew up.

1. Remove drives 2 thru 4. Leave drive 1 (or a seed drive) in slot 1.
2. Put one of your new drives in slot 2. (no drives in slot 3 or 4)
3. Boot the unit.

a) I tell people to wait about 15 minutes from here.
b) It takes 5 to 9 minutes to boot the unit depending on your unit and configuration etc. It only takes a couple minutes after full boot for the OS to get copied over from slot 1 to slot 2, but give it 5 to 10 minutes from full boot up to be sure. No big deal.

4. Shut the unit down.
5. Remove the old drive from slot 1.
6. Put your new drive from slot 2 that just got the OS installed into slot 1.
7. Put your other 3 fresh clean new drives into slots 2 thru 4.
8. Boot the unit.
9. Wait 10 minutes from full boot up for the OS to copy to the 3 new drives.

c) At this point, I usually do a hardware reset and a factory default reset and erase the logs etc to clean things up, but not required.

10. Your done.


A child could do it.


Edit Note: This also assumes you were using RAID 5 (by far the most common). If not, then you will need to break the array first.