RAID plays a significant role in data storage, it stripes, mirrors or  incorporates parity to your data so it can be retrieved if any hardware failure  occurs. However, this article won’t focus on each RAID computation in itself as  more details can be found here.  With the release of the new and highly anticipated Thecus® N2520 and N4520 NAS, Thecus®includes  an innovative Self-RAID Creation function that automatically builds RAID according the number of HDD that are  inserted in your NAS.

N2520 RAID creation

For the N2520 2-bay NAS, if one HDD is detected the  NAS itself will build JBOD for the most amount of storage capacity allowed  without mirroring or such. When two disks are detected the NAS system will  automatically build RAID 1 to mirror your data.

N4520 RAID creation

The N4520 4-bay NAS is more complex as it’s able to  house four disks with the capability of building advanced RAID levels. One disk  detected will create JBOD and two disks will create RAID 1. The difference  between the N2520 and the N4520 is the extra 2 bays that the N4520 offers.  Therefore, when three or four disks are detected, RAID 5 will be automatically  created for convenience.

Conclusion

The purpose of Self-RAID creation (SRC) is to  promote ease of use and simplify the overall NAS setup. The RAID levels  mentioned above are the most common ones used such as RAID 1, 5 and JBOD but  other RAID levels are able to be created via the NAS UI. If the user opts for a  different RAID system opposed to the self-created RAID, they are able to enter  the NAS UI and choose the RAID that is available pertaining to how many disks  are in the NAS.