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scottywatty's avatar
scottywatty
Aspirant
Jul 30, 2018

ReadyNAS 212 Migration

I cannot get the NetGear sales department to respond to me (Not a good sign) so I'm posting my question here hoping for some insight.

 

I am interested in the ReadyNAS 212 but have some questions about data transfer. I have been using a Synology device and my two 8TB drives are configured for their system but it has all my movies and music on them. Is there a way I can install in the ReadyNAS 212 and retain my data?

15 Replies

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  • StephenB's avatar
    StephenB
    Guru - Experienced User

    scottywatty wrote:

    I have been using a Synology device ... Is there a way I can install in the ReadyNAS 212 and retain my data?


    No (that won't work in either direction).  The operating system is installed on the hard drives in both cases, and both systems want control over the disk partitioning, filesystem organization, etc..  You'll need to restore the data from a backup.

     

    One thing that will work: you can get new drives for the RN212, and then use ReadyNAS backup jobs to copy the data from the Synology.  You can then re-purpose the Synology as a backup NAS (running rsync backup jobs on the ReadyNAS to update the files on the Synology).  That is more expensive, but it gives you a backup strategy.  RAID isn't enough to keep your data safe (on any vendor's NAS), the only way to do that is to have a backup on another device (NAS, PC, USB hard drive, etc).

     

    A variant is to start with one new drive for the ReadyNAS (perhaps larger than 8 TB).  Then you wouldn't have RAID protection on the ReadyNAS, but you would have a full backup and RAID redundancy on the Synology.  You could add a second drive to the ReadyNAS later on to bring it up to RAID-1 (when finances permit).

     

     

    Another option (not recommended because it does have some data risk - but should work if the drives are healthy, and if the Synology is using RAID-1). 

     

    You could power down, and remove one drive from the Synology.  Then boot it up, and confirm that your files remain accessible.  Then do a new system setup in the ReadyNAS using the removed drive.  Copy your data over the network from the synology (again, rsync backup jobs are recommended for this). 

     

    Once the data is migrated, you can rebuild the Synology in jbod (to avoid having a degraded raid volume), and copy the data back over the network from the ReadyNAS.  You'd have no RAID redundancy on either system, but you would have a full backup on the Synology.  You could then add disks to both systems to get RAID redundancy on both systems later on (when finances permit).

    • scottywatty's avatar
      scottywatty
      Aspirant

      Thank you. A lot of what you said makes my head spin but I think you are saying since I have two drives from Synology, I could bring one of them up on the ReadyNAS 212 and then migrate the data from the other Synology drive onto the ReadyNAS? If I place the Synology Drive in bay 2 of the ReadNAS will it  be able to see the data to copy over?

      • scottywatty's avatar
        scottywatty
        Aspirant

        Hmmm. I just re-read and I think you are saying I boot the other drive in the Synology drive, Which is not possible because their system went down and they will not provide support, w hich is why I am leaving them. 

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