How to adjust size of volumes and add volumes to an existing RAID 5 array

We do not support adding disks to a RAID volume to increase its capacity, so yes you must start over.

thanks for the feedback!

I am new to using RAIDs (so please bear with me) for video editing and have been trying to understand whether expansion of any kind is possible after the initial configuration.  I have a Thunderbay 8, and currently have three 18TB drives, configured as one RAID 5 volume.  I am certifying the disks now, and wondering if I can eventually order another set of drives (up to 5 to fill the Thunderbay 8) and create a second volume with the new set.  From what I understand, this will mean inefficiency and a wasted drive, meaning my max capacity will be 6x 18TB vs 7x, but is this one solution to avoid forking over the $$$ to fill my Thunderbay right now?  Are there other technical considerations with running multiple volumes across 8 drives on RAID 5?  Should I be trying to purchase at least one more identical drive now for the first volume, so that both volumes will be identical in size, or is that not an issue?

Thank you for the help and explanation.  I too searched the forums and read several relevant posts trying to figure this out.  I wish there was a "how to" guide that I could go through step by step, to make sure I'm not doing something now that will make my life more difficult down the road.  I found answers about expansion on other web sites, which makes it seem possible on other RAID 5 systems, but the feature set of SoftRAID seems different.

@jengilomen

We do not offer that feature. So yes, if you want to add disks, it means deleting your volume, adding disks and restoring from backup.

Don't be afraid to ask questions.