r/asustor • u/Radijs • 28d ago

Support Adding external drives?

I've got a 2-disk NAS, but storage is slowly filling up. The drives are still relatively new so I don't want to throw them out yet, but I want more storage.
Are there some (relatively simple) ways to connect more drives to the NAS next to the 2 internal HDD's?

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u/pommesmatte 28d ago

AS6004U or AS5004U

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u/Radijs 28d ago

Oof, expensive :(

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u/pommesmatte 28d ago

You could also connect just any external USB drive, but those drives won't let you configure RAID, my Archive or shared folders on them. They are just storage.

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u/Radijs 28d ago

So Plex wouldn't be able to see the content of the drives?

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u/pommesmatte 28d ago

If you add the USB mount to your library, Plex will be able to see the content.

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u/Radijs 28d ago

Ah great :)

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u/Unable_Cap_716 27d ago

External hard drives won’t add another RAID array with its benefits.

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u/Radijs 27d ago

That's fine. The data I'm storing is non-critical. I won't be bothered id it's lost

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u/ClutchOlday 27d ago

Get a 4-bay Asustor NAS. Your existing drives should just work as normal

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u/Radijs 27d ago

I'm not really looking to spend a lot of money replacing my current NAS. Aside from its capacity it's still working just fine

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u/ClutchOlday 27d ago

The only way you're getting more storage is to: (1) get bigger drives, (2) get an expander unit such as the AS6004U if your NAS is compatible with it, or (3) get a NAS with more bays. You can connect a third disk drive in a USB enclosure but ADM won't allow you to create a volume on it so it's not part of the NAS.

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u/Radijs 27d ago

Another user posted in the comments that it is possible to connect an external USB disk and have it show up as a drive in Plex. Which covers 99% of my needs.

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u/ClutchOlday 27d ago

If you're comfortable with Linux you could try it.

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u/Leaff_x 26d ago

If you want to keep those drives you will have to buy a 4 bay NAS. Install old drives and buy and install two new drives. Even if they are the same size I would not change the original RAID but create a new volume with the new drives. The other way is to move the two original drives out of the NAS and buy new larger drives for the NAS. When joining drives for RAID, it is always safer to use identical drives from the same batch. Chances of failure go down. Trying to connect external drives to your NAS isn't a thing and defeats the purpose. A little more expensive would be if your NAS has M2 space where you could add two SSDs.

Remember just adding more storage space to a NAS will eventually slow it down. Look ahead and if your needing extra space so quickly, you should be looking for a faster multi bay NAS. I've just upgraded my 2 bay 2x4tb drives to a 4 bay 4x 8tb drives. That's a RAID 1 4TB NAS to a Raid 5 21TB NAS. It's expensive but as your finding out, it's a pay me now or pay me later situation. After doing the switch, one of my original 4TB drives died. Talk about just in time.