Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini - Creating Volumes https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/ SoftRAID Discussion Board en-US Thu, 23 Apr 2026 18:21:19 +0000 wpForo 60 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20051 Sat, 16 Sep 2023 02:49:08 +0000 @burningman 

You cannot create any volume with SoftRAID, correct?

Does the SoftRAID Application have "full disk access"?

]]> Creating Volumes SoftRAID Support https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20051 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20048 Sat, 16 Sep 2023 01:48:29 +0000 Unfortunately I was unable to create a RAID4 volume due to Error 128 described here.

]]> Creating Volumes BurningMan https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20048 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20013 Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:56:50 +0000 For HDD's no. A single enclosure won't saturate the bus so whether 1, 2 or 3 enclosures won't matter.

]]> Creating Volumes SoftRAID Support https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20013 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20009 Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:07:56 +0000 Awesome, will try. Would I get close to triple the performance if I were to distribute the 8 drives across three enclosures (i.e. 3+3+2 drives) instead of two (with 4+4 drives)?

]]> Creating Volumes BurningMan https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-20009 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19966 Thu, 07 Sep 2023 23:40:54 +0000 @burningman 

My guess is close to double, not quite, but should be close!

]]> Creating Volumes SoftRAID Support https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19966 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19965 Thu, 07 Sep 2023 21:30:33 +0000 Thanks for the answer. What would be your best guess as to how fast the performance will be after? 1.5x? 2x? (Single enclosure RAID5 was 500/800 mb/s write/read). Will read/write performance be affected differently?

]]> Creating Volumes BurningMan https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19965 RE: Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19962 Thu, 07 Sep 2023 12:45:30 +0000 Correct, we cannot 'add disks' to a RAID volume to make it larger. the only way is replacing drives one by one, to get the larger capacity.

B is your only option.
Yes you shoudl get faster performance with 8 drives.
Note: to span across enclosures, you need SoftRAID Pro.

]]> Creating Volumes SoftRAID Support https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19962 Expanding RAID5 by adding 2nd ThunderBay 4 Mini https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19961 Thu, 07 Sep 2023 10:47:27 +0000 I currently have a OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini with 4x8TB SSD (32TB) in RAID5.

I'd like to expand the RAID5 to 64TB while using as little desk space (and money) as possible, which led me to the idea of just doubling the setup and daisy chaining it.

I have the following questions:

A. Unless all individual drives are replaced with higher capacity (too expensive), there is no option to expand the capacity of an existing RAID5 drive using SoftRaid?

B. Assuming A is true, is there a better option than to delete the current RAID5, create a new one spanning all 8 drives across the daisy chained two ThunderBay enclosures, and copy the files back from another backup?

C. The current setup is performing at ~500MB/s write and ~800MB/s reads. Can I expect a performance gain using two daisy chained ThunderBay enclosures?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

]]> Creating Volumes BurningMan https://forums.softraid.com/creating-volumes/expanding-raid5-by-adding-2nd-thunderbay-4-mini/#post-19961