New ReadyNas system, existing drives with data

tropicalicecube wrote:

... 0. Data is safely in your hardware, identical on 2 drives that we'll call sda1 and sda2. 1. Remove one of your 2 disks in your current hardware, call it sda2, 2. Set sda2 up in the new NAS, as a single unit, not redundant machine. 3. Start copy procedures between sda1 on former hardware and new NAS where sda2 sits; go do something else. 4 move the remaining sda1 disk from former hardware to NAS, set it up as mirror/new member of raid array, and go do something else again while the NAS syncs from sda2 Would that work?

Yes, though in step (2) all you need to do is add sqa2 as a first disk (using the default setup). When you add the second disk to the duo it will automatically mirror. Note when you are re-using disks you sometimes need to delete the old partitions before installing them (if you see a "corrupt root" or similar message when you install the disk, that would be a clue that you need to do this).

Are your drives on Netgear's official HCL? Using drives that aren't on it will limit Netgear support.

tropicalicecube wrote:
...can I just use rsync like in 'rsync -rluv root@OLDNAS:/my/folderrs/* root@NEWNAS:/my/folders' with the Duo?

Not sure about this particular command syntax (not a linux guy).

Do you have a Duo V1 or the V2? I don't think the V2 supports rsync or NFS (at least not yet). The V1 supports both. You can also use the backup features in Frontview, instead of using command line stuff.

tropicalicecube wrote:
...Can I build the the RAID array after doing the copy with only one disk in the NAS? Would the NAS accept sda1 as a "new" disk to include in a RAID1 array?

Yes that should work. The Duo should re-sync when it sees the new drive, and you shouldn't lose any data.

Though this procedure should migrate your data, I would strongly recommend that you create a backup first. Rebuilding the raid array stresses the drives, so your data is more vulnerable than normal.

If you don't have a good backup plan, perhaps you should keep your old NAS running, and get new drives for the DUO. Then you can backup the DUO to the old one.