Connecting hard drives

CONTENTS IN THIS ARTICLE

Overview on storage

Monument offers variety of options to configure your storage system. You can connect a hard drive based on your storage needs and upgrade to a larger drive when you need more. By using the onsite and offsite backup (mirroring) options, you can create additional backups effortlessly to an external USB Drive, NAS (Network Attached Storage) Drives, or even to a computer. 

Diskless models come with no storage installed. You can connect an external USB Drive with any size or install your own internal SSD drive according to your needs. 

Built-in storage models comes with an internal SSD drive which is pre-installed. By default, the drive is formatted using the ext-4 file system. 

When plugging in an external USB drive to Monument, please make sure it's formatted with one of the file systems: 

  • NTFS - Windows based file system.
  • HFS+ / Mac OS Extended - Mac OS based file system.
  • exFAT - Compatible for both Windows and Mac. 
  • EXT4 / EXT3 / EXT2 - Commonly used file system for Linux. 
  • VFAT / FAT32 - Relatively old file system. The largest individual file size is limited with 4GB. Commonly used on USB flash drives. 
ℹ Note: Password protected/encrypted drives are not supported. It needs to be turned off before using Monument. 
ℹ Note: Some external drives such as LaCie drives, require initialization using a computer before they can be used. If your drive requires initialization, please connect the drive to a computer first. Suggested reading: Initializing LaCie Drives.

Primary drive

The primary drive is the main drive for uploading your content. It contains the original copies of the content uploaded and the system files generated by Monument 2. 

  1. For built-in SSD models:The primary drive is pre-installed on your Monument 2.
  2. For diskless models: The primary drive, which is the main drive for uploading your content can be configured using an external USB Drive or an internal SSD Drive.

2.1 Using an internal SSD drive

For diskless models, you can plug in your own SSD drive to use it as your primary drive. The SSD connector comes pre-installed and you will have everything you need to install your own.

Note: If you are planning to use your own internal SSD Drive, please prepare your device by following the steps on this guide.
Note: If the internal drive is not formatted, it will be formatted using ext-4 filesystem during initialization.
Note: If you already plugged in an external USB Drive as the primary drive, the internal SSD Drive will not be initialized. Internal SSD Drive can only be configures and used as the primary drive.

After an SSD Drive is installed, you can plug in an external USB drive to configure it as the backup drive. Monument automatically mirrors the contents of the SSD Drive to the external USB drive for increased redundancy.

2.2 Using external USB Drives

Monument 2 has two USB ports for connecting external drives. You can connect any external USB Drive with any capacity as long as it is formatted using one of the supported file systems. 

The first drive can be configured as the primary drive and the second drive can be configured as the backup drive. When configured, Monument mirrors the contents (similar to RAID-1) of the primary drive to the backup drive automatically. 

Connect a primary drive using external USB drives. 
It's not possible to connect more than 2 external USB drives to Monument.

Backup drive

Monument offers a few onsite and offsite backup options and it is highly recommended to use a backup for increased redundancy. 

Monument helps you create a backup to an external USB Drive, to a network drive or to your computer. 

Backup process runs in background automatically when there's no active transfer and Monument is in idle mode.

Connect a backup drive using external USB drives. 
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