Certification strategy question - SoftRAID Volumes https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-volumes/certification-strategy-question/ SoftRAID Discussion Board en-US Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:30:01 +0000 wpForo 60 RE: Certification strategy question https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-volumes/certification-strategy-question/#post-24633 Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:02:29 +0000 The only way you can do it, is run "unprotected" for 10 days.
Create an 8 drive RAID 5 volume, including the new disk.
Then "remove disk" and take that disk and certify it, bring it back, initialize, then "add disk" and let it rebuild.

]]> SoftRAID Volumes SoftRAID Support https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-volumes/certification-strategy-question/#post-24633 Certification strategy question https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-volumes/certification-strategy-question/#post-24632 Fri, 23 Jan 2026 21:30:55 +0000 I have a new Thunderbay 8, and was planning to create a 6-disk RAID. I am nearly finished certifying 7 20 TB disks (one to be a spare). As I have been reading on this forum, I have learned that SoftRAID cannot add a disk to a RAID, so I'm now thinking of making this an 8-disk RAID from the start, and have ordered two more disks.

As certification for 20TB disks takes a week or more, I'm thinking of creating the RAID with the 7 certified disks and one of the new uncertified disks so I can begin to library material to the RAID, while the spare disk gets certified on a different machine. Then, when certification of the spare is complete, swap the uncertified disk out for the certified spare and let the RAID rebuild. 

Is this a reasonable way to proceed? Are there pitfalls I've not considered? Or am I just overthinking the whole thing?

]]> SoftRAID Volumes Filmguy https://forums.softraid.com/softraid-volumes/certification-strategy-question/#post-24632