I own a Pegasus2 R4 8TB RAID5 made up of 4x physical 2TB HHDs with 6TB logical capacity. I use this as a work drive and it's been great, but I have less than 1TB of space left on it and I'm looking to upgrade.
Meanwhile I've been doing a bunch of work on another 6TB software RAID0 made up of 3x 2TB Western Digital desktop drives, all USB3. This RAID0 array was fast enough for what I needed it for at the time, but none of these drives were designed to be used in a RAID and two of them are showing signs of pre-failure and are most likely on their way out.
I've backed up this RAID0 array using another concatenated RAID of 3x desktop drives, some USB2, some USB3, all of which are old, slow and will most likely need replacement soon as well. I'm tired of dealing with these desktop drives and I would like to move my entire storage system over to the Pegasus2 system, but I'm unsure what the most cost effective way of doing this would be.
My initial idea was to remove all the 2TB HHDs from my R4, all of which are still functional, put them in a safe offsite for added backup insurance, and replace them with 4x 4TB HHDs or even 4x 6TB HHDs. However, I checked the latest Pegasus2 Compatibility list and it looks like there are only two drive models that the R4 was tested with and ships with, a Toshiba 3TB and a Toshiba 2TB. It says any of the drives listed there should work in all systems, but are untested in some models. Does that mean it's risky to use drives larger than 3TB in the R4? If Promise hasn't tested it, have any other customers tested a set of 4x 4TB or 4x 6TB HHDs in the R4?
I need, at the very least, 12TB logical capacity, but even more space would be ideal. If I understand correctly, 4x 3TB HHDs will leave me with 9GB logical capacity, which is too small, and even 4x 4TB HHDs will leave me with exactly 12TB logical capacity, so ideally 4x 6TB drives would be the best as it would leave me with 18GB logical capacity and 4TB of free space once all data is transferred over. Therefore, I'd love to know if it's even possible and/or recommended to put 4x 6TB drives into the R4.
The price of 4x 6TB Toshiba models in the compatibility list adds up to around $850. If going through the trouble of replacing all 4 drives is going to be a hastle, perhaps it's better to simply jump to a higher price point and invest in an 18TB Pegasus2 R6. The 15TB logical capacity would leave me with 9TB of free space once I transfer over my 6TB of data from the RAID0 array, and that combined with the added speed of the R6, could make it a worthwhile investment. However, I'm also wondering if there will be any loss in speed from daisy-chaining the R6 to the R4 or vice versa?
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
