Can I hot swap a drive in a Synology NAS?

Hot-swapping means replacing a drive without powering down. It is supported on Synology models that have hot-swappable drive bays, most Plus-series DiskStations and rackmount units, but not on every entry model. Check your model's specifications on Synology's site before relying on it.

When it is safe

Hot-swap the drive that has failed (the pool is degraded and Storage Manager flags the bad drive), or a drive you have first deactivated in Storage Manager. Pulling a healthy, active drive from a working pool is not a hot-swap: it is an unplanned failure, and doing it on a pool with no remaining redundancy can crash the volume.

The procedure

1. Identify the failed bay in Storage Manager (the drive LED usually shows the fault).
2. Remove the drive tray, fit the new CMR drive, and slide it back in.
3. Go to Storage Manager → the degraded pool → Repair, and select the new drive.
4. Let the rebuild complete before removing any other drive.

If your model is not hot-swap

Some compact and value models require a shutdown to change drives: that is fine, just power down cleanly first, swap, and boot back up to run the repair. Either way, use a CMR drive at least as large as the one removed; the table lists current options.