Freenas 1st time user - Raid array query

[sabi-tech]

Good afternoon all,

Hi, I have recently bought an ARTiGo A2000 to use as my FreeNAS machine, I'm planning on using 2x 1tb drives in a mirror. The only issue i have is that one of the drives already has approx 900 gb of data on. the other is blank.

My question was weather i am able to put the blank drive in, format it using FreeNAS and transfer my data onto it. THEN put the other drive in, Format it using FreeNAS and add it as a mirror of the first drive? (i think it's raid 1?)

I would also add that i do not have a spare device to back up to and add both drives at the same time.

I apologise for my vaugeness, I had a search but could not find any results for my question..
Thanks in advance,
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dannyb78]

I dont think there's a way to do that. The only thing you can try i to use a 3rd small disk to create the array with the blank one. then remove the smaller, copy your data, plug the new disk and resilver the array. It should work... or not.
I've done a similar thing with my 4 disks RAIDz.
anyway 900GB is not a so big amount of data. If you have not, get a usb ext disk. It'll be also usefull for backups ;)

 

[sabi-tech]

Thanks... it was just the financial issue of getting annother drive for me at the moment. I was considdering borrowing one from work on **** as i work for Toshiba and we have loads of kit here :)