Is it possible to just move HDDs from one NAS to another NAS when upgrading?

Question

I currently have a D-Link DNS-320 with 2x2TB HDDs in there, setup with Raid. Am not at all happy with the speed of the D-Link unit - working in a Mac environment. So after a lot of research I settled on the Synology DS212j NAS.

Now my question is this - is it possible to just unplug the D-Link, remove the drives and pop them into the Synology unit and power it up? If so, is there anything I need to do in preparation.

If not, what's the best way of doing this. I don't have other drives in the Synology - my hope was to take the 2 in the D-Link and move them into the Synology and be done with the D-Link.

Right now, I have backups, photos, videos, etc. on the HDDs in the D-Link. I can't afford to lose anything on the drives.

Any help would be most appreciated. Many thanks.

Answer 1

Moving the disks from one NAS to another NAS (esp. another brand/completely different) NAS is not guaranteed to work.Do not do that without making a backup.

Ok, now that is said, you have three options:

1. With enough drives (e.g. four 2TB drives):
   - Put the new drives in the new NAS.
   - Format the new NAS.
   - Copy the files.
   - Keep the old NAS as an off-line backup. Preferably in another location.
2. With only the two 2TB drives and enough space for a backup:
   - Verify that the backup works.
   - Put the drives in the new NAS.
   - If they work there. Great!
   If not reformat and copy the data to the new NAS.
3. With only the two 2TB drives and insufficient space to make backups.
   Do not test this without backup. Really. Borrow a friends drive, or move all data to one 2TB disk and move the disks across one by one, or any other way. But doing it without a backup risks all your data.

Answer 2

What RAID? If you are mirroring, you could pull 1 drive, place it in the synology, check if the data still exsists, if not, copy the remaining drive to the new, upon completion pull the other, add it to the synology as a blank drive and rebuild the RAID.

You would be a bit more vulnarable during the process, but it would be the same as if a drive in the RAID configuration had failed.

Or am I missing something here? Obviously, this would NOT work when striping

Answer 3

if you don't currently have mirrored drives, you're a bit up the creek and I would just recommend buying a couple of 4T drives to mirror in your new NAS, then copy (or backup/restore) your data to the new unit.

If you have mirrored your current NAS, then I'd recommend that you pull one drive from your existing and put it in the new synology. Reformat it, and then copy the data from your original NAS. Once that's done and you confirm that everything copied ok, simply pull the last disk from your original NAS, put it in the synology and create a mirrored volume for the one already in the synology.

Answer 4

Wiping drives when transferring from one brand to another brand (or even within brands) is the general expected behaviour in my experience. Different file systems, security, and 'operating systems' mean that a swap can't be done. I'll be more than happy to be proved wrong, though.

Answer 5

Sounds like you're relying on that NAS box with RAID-1 to keep your pictures safe? :) EEEEEEEHHHHH WRONG!!! RAID is NOT A BACKUP...a nasty Cryptolocker virus could easily wipe out your pictures so BIG RECOMMENDATION go out and buy that extra HDD anyway to store a backup copy of the pictures on and don't have it attached all the time but instead if you have a safe at home which is fireproof store it there in between. There's also alternate/better alternatives built into Synology using off-site backup like Amazon Glacier so you always have an off-site copy for disaster recovery (not for free of course). Keeping your data safe is very costly, especially if you have a lot. Myself I've spent over $1500 on several NAS boxes/hard-drives. One Synology box with two 8TB WD RED in Raid-1 harddrives at home, and another Synology box with a single WD RED 8TB disk at a friends home which replicates all data.