How to create RAID array with existing drive without losing existing data?

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key4427

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Mar 11, 2025
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I first bought a 4TB drive long ago that has been serving me well for Plex, but I want to expand my little server for more, specifically for 4k movies and replacing my cloud storage.

I just bought myself 5 more 4TB drives, and I'm thinking of doing some sort of RAID array to have a 4 drive data pool + 2 for parity. I am a full on newbie to Proxmox, RAIDing, and these sorts of advanced technicalities. I have just installed Proxmox VE 8.3.4 onto the computer's 120GB NVME, but that's about it.

My main worry is data loss. How can I implement all of my six drives into this RAID array without losing my already existing collection? Can I create the array as 4+1, dump my data from the old drive to the array, and then add the drive as another parity drive? What is my best solution here? Are there any tutorials on the matter?

Thanks for the help!
 
BobhWasatch said:
Make a backup and then restore it to the new array.
Click to expand...
Currently, the original 4TB drive is unplugged. I have the 5 new 4TB drives plugged onto the computer. I did this so I could do whatever setup I need before dumping all the data from that drive into whatever pool I make with the other drives before formatting that drive and adding it to the pool/parity set, or whatever.

I don't have any other drive or an external drive which I could back up all the data from the original 4TB drive, but I hope that keeping it unplugged while I do whatever configuration I need to do is enough.
 
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