**Upgrading Storage Capacity on a Synology NAS**

One of the most effective ways to increase storage capacity on a Synology NAS is to add more hard drives. In this article, we will explore how to upgrade the storage capacity on a Synology NAS using multiple hard drives.

Using Multiple Hard Drives

When it comes to upgrading the storage capacity on a Synology NAS, one of the most effective ways to do so is by adding multiple hard drives. The process is relatively straightforward and can be completed with ease. For this example, we will use three 3TB Western Digital Red drives as our test case. These drives are ideal for use in a NAS due to their high storage capacity and reliability.

**Mounting the Third Drive**

Once the third drive is connected to the NAS, it should be recognized by the system automatically. However, it may take some time for the drive to become fully accessible. In this example, we have already mounted the drive and placed it back in the NAS, ensuring that it is properly connected.

**Expanding the Volume**

To expand the volume on the Synology NAS, simply log in to the DSM interface and navigate to the Storage Manager section. From here, select the volume that needs to be expanded and click on the "Manage" button. In this case, we will select the third drive and click on "Expand the Volume by Adding New Hard Drives." The system will then automatically detect any additional drives that are connected.

**Confirming the Expansion**

Once the expansion process has begun, a confirmation message will be displayed to ensure that the user is aware of what is happening. This may include information about encrypted folders being unmounted and all services being stopped. In this case, we have selected "OK" to confirm the expansion process.

**Time Required for Expansion**

The time required for the volume expansion to complete can vary depending on the size of the drive connected. In our example, it took approximately 32 hours for the volume expansion to be completed using a 3TB drive. It is essential to note that during this time, the transfer speeds may fall significantly.

**Best Practices and Precautions**

Before attempting to upgrade the storage capacity on a Synology NAS, it is recommended to perform a DIS check on the existing drives to ensure that they are compatible with the NAS system. Additionally, upgrading the storage capacity during periods of low usage can help minimize any potential disruptions to services.

**Conclusion**

Upgrading the storage capacity on a Synology NAS using multiple hard drives is a relatively straightforward process that can be completed with ease. By following the steps outlined in this article, users can effectively increase their storage capacity and enjoy improved performance and reliability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi there this is Ranjit and in this video I'm going to show you how to expand the volume of your Synology Nas without any loss of data and a couple of weeks back I showed you how to migrate from one sonology Nas to another sonology Nas and in this video we're going to expand the volume for example uh this will be ideal for people who have higher Bay uh nases for example let's say you have a 4bay Nas and currently you are just populated the nas initially with just two disc but now you feel that uh uh your storage requirements have increased and you want to expand the capacity of sonology nasp fortunately if you're using the syy hybrid rate you can just easily expand the volume by populating the other two drives or a third drive for example in a for Nas for me currently I'm using a fob Nas and I have two drives populated and what we are going to do here is add one more drive that's the third drive and this can be done without the loss of any data and I'm going to show you how to do it step by step one thing you need to note is that uh the minimum capacity of the hard drive that you need to put is for example uh in our case the first drive was a 2 terb drive and the second was a 3 terab drive now if I want to populate the third or the fourth drive the minimum capacity of the disc that I have to put is a 3 TB drive so that is the only consideration that you have to make now let me show you how to go about it step by step so here we have the syy N the one I have is the ds412 plus and this one has four Bas and out of which two are populated uh with three terab drives the first one is a 3 terb drive and the second one is also a 3 terb drive and we're going to these are empty the third and the fourth Bay and we're going to add one drive that is the Western Digital red drive again this is a 3 terabyte drive and uh again it's a good idea to use these uh red drives in a Nas I've already made a video why these are better than standard desktop hard drives so you can check out this video for more info regarding that and I'll just Mount uh this drive and this skage and put it back in the nas and then I'll show you the DSM interface how to uh expand the volume do note that I'm using the shr that is Synology hybrid rate and the thing with that is uh to expand the volume like this uh the capacity of the hard drive has to be equal or larger than any of the drives for example let's say if I have 1 tab drive this is a second terab 2 terab drive then if I want to expand I have to use at least a 2 TB or a higher capacity but in my case as the first drive and the second Drive are 3 TB drives the minimum that I had to use is a 3 TB drive and I'm doing that and now I have this uh red Drive mounted and I'm going to place it back in the nas and now we have one two and three uh dri that up upet this is the new one now just close the nas connect it to your ethernet cable and power it on and now you need to log on to the DSM interface and I'll I'll show you how to expand the volume and uh I'm assuming that your senology Nas has booted and now you need to log in back to your dis station manager and I'm just logging in and if you might notice your Nas depending on your Nas now the new Drive should light up uh but it's not usable right now to use it you need to go to the storage manager like this and let me bring it here and uh select the volume that you have and we're going to expand this volume and to do that right now as you can see the third dis is not visible only the first two dis are visible and we need to hit this manage button and here as you can see we want to expand the volume so we're going to select this expand the volume by adding new hard drives and as you can see the Synology Nas has automatically detected this third dis if you have multiple discs for example let's say you are adding two disc select all those discs for us it's just this one D so I'll select that and hit next and as you can see it says that all the data on the third D that we have put right now will be erased and I'm going to hit okay and now as you can see now it's expanding the volume and now after expansion I'll have 5.4 tab of storage earlier I had about just 2.7 terab and you need to hit apply and now it say gives us this message that encrypted shade folders will be unmounted and and all the services will be stopped so if you're doing any critical work on your Nas just stop that because this process can take quite a while and uh now it's confirming this and now it's actually going to expand the volume again depending upon the size of the disc that you have this can take couple of hours so you need to be patient so this is how you expand the volume on a Synology Nas you can see my current capacity on this Nas is 2.68 terabytes but after the expansion is completed uh I'll have around 5 6 terabytes of uh space again as you can see it's going to take a lot of time it'll take at least a couple of hours and the time it takes depends upon the size of the disc for personally for me as I was using a 3 TB disc it took almost about 32 hours for the volume expansion to happen so it's a good idea to do this procedure when the Nas is not going to be used heavily because I noticed that during the time of expansion the transfer speeds SP fell to 1/3 of the original speeds that I used to get after after the expansion everything worked normally though also I would recommend that you do a dis check on your Synology Nas with existing dis before attempting this procedure to be on the safe side so this is how you expand the volume on a Synology Nas If you found this video helpful I'll appreciate if you can click the like button given below I've also made about a dozen other videos uh regarding Synology Nas you can find all those videos in the uh link below the link will be in the YouTube show notes uh thank you this is ranit from tech.com and I hope to see you in my next videoshi there this is Ranjit and in this video I'm going to show you how to expand the volume of your Synology Nas without any loss of data and a couple of weeks back I showed you how to migrate from one sonology Nas to another sonology Nas and in this video we're going to expand the volume for example uh this will be ideal for people who have higher Bay uh nases for example let's say you have a 4bay Nas and currently you are just populated the nas initially with just two disc but now you feel that uh uh your storage requirements have increased and you want to expand the capacity of sonology nasp fortunately if you're using the syy hybrid rate you can just easily expand the volume by populating the other two drives or a third drive for example in a for Nas for me currently I'm using a fob Nas and I have two drives populated and what we are going to do here is add one more drive that's the third drive and this can be done without the loss of any data and I'm going to show you how to do it step by step one thing you need to note is that uh the minimum capacity of the hard drive that you need to put is for example uh in our case the first drive was a 2 terb drive and the second was a 3 terab drive now if I want to populate the third or the fourth drive the minimum capacity of the disc that I have to put is a 3 TB drive so that is the only consideration that you have to make now let me show you how to go about it step by step so here we have the syy N the one I have is the ds412 plus and this one has four Bas and out of which two are populated uh with three terab drives the first one is a 3 terb drive and the second one is also a 3 terb drive and we're going to these are empty the third and the fourth Bay and we're going to add one drive that is the Western Digital red drive again this is a 3 terabyte drive and uh again it's a good idea to use these uh red drives in a Nas I've already made a video why these are better than standard desktop hard drives so you can check out this video for more info regarding that and I'll just Mount uh this drive and this skage and put it back in the nas and then I'll show you the DSM interface how to uh expand the volume do note that I'm using the shr that is Synology hybrid rate and the thing with that is uh to expand the volume like this uh the capacity of the hard drive has to be equal or larger than any of the drives for example let's say if I have 1 tab drive this is a second terab 2 terab drive then if I want to expand I have to use at least a 2 TB or a higher capacity but in my case as the first drive and the second Drive are 3 TB drives the minimum that I had to use is a 3 TB drive and I'm doing that and now I have this uh red Drive mounted and I'm going to place it back in the nas and now we have one two and three uh dri that up upet this is the new one now just close the nas connect it to your ethernet cable and power it on and now you need to log on to the DSM interface and I'll I'll show you how to expand the volume and uh I'm assuming that your senology Nas has booted and now you need to log in back to your dis station manager and I'm just logging in and if you might notice your Nas depending on your Nas now the new Drive should light up uh but it's not usable right now to use it you need to go to the storage manager like this and let me bring it here and uh select the volume that you have and we're going to expand this volume and to do that right now as you can see the third dis is not visible only the first two dis are visible and we need to hit this manage button and here as you can see we want to expand the volume so we're going to select this expand the volume by adding new hard drives and as you can see the Synology Nas has automatically detected this third dis if you have multiple discs for example let's say you are adding two disc select all those discs for us it's just this one D so I'll select that and hit next and as you can see it says that all the data on the third D that we have put right now will be erased and I'm going to hit okay and now as you can see now it's expanding the volume and now after expansion I'll have 5.4 tab of storage earlier I had about just 2.7 terab and you need to hit apply and now it say gives us this message that encrypted shade folders will be unmounted and and all the services will be stopped so if you're doing any critical work on your Nas just stop that because this process can take quite a while and uh now it's confirming this and now it's actually going to expand the volume again depending upon the size of the disc that you have this can take couple of hours so you need to be patient so this is how you expand the volume on a Synology Nas you can see my current capacity on this Nas is 2.68 terabytes but after the expansion is completed uh I'll have around 5 6 terabytes of uh space again as you can see it's going to take a lot of time it'll take at least a couple of hours and the time it takes depends upon the size of the disc for personally for me as I was using a 3 TB disc it took almost about 32 hours for the volume expansion to happen so it's a good idea to do this procedure when the Nas is not going to be used heavily because I noticed that during the time of expansion the transfer speeds SP fell to 1/3 of the original speeds that I used to get after after the expansion everything worked normally though also I would recommend that you do a dis check on your Synology Nas with existing dis before attempting this procedure to be on the safe side so this is how you expand the volume on a Synology Nas If you found this video helpful I'll appreciate if you can click the like button given below I've also made about a dozen other videos uh regarding Synology Nas you can find all those videos in the uh link below the link will be in the YouTube show notes uh thank you this is ranit from tech.com and I hope to see you in my next videos\n"