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An inactive array often means metadata was found but the system did not have enough confidence or members to start it safely after an unclean shutdown.

Force options can bypass safety checks around stale metadata, dirty parity, missing writes, or active pools; inspect and preserve evidence before using them.

Track whether errors follow the disk or remain with the SATA path, and separate transport counters from media-health evidence before replacing hardware.

Mixed-speed drives can mirror data, but the slower member can set write, recovery, latency, and workload limits for the whole array.

Larger disks do not add usable space until every limiting layer—member, RAID, partition, volume, and filesystem—recognizes the new capacity.

Parity checks scan shared disks and raise queueing latency across apps. Measure the storage bottleneck, schedule low-demand windows, and throttle safely.

Serial numbers preserve physical disk identity when paths, ports, and bay indexes change. Build an external map before moving or replacing any NAS member.

Rising I/O errors can mean the source set is deteriorating despite visible progress. Map the failing device, reduce writes, and protect readable data first.