Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166

garethjjones wrote:
upgrading to a ST2000VN000

Nice. Those are good drives, well worth the hassle of switching from your old ST2000DL003s.

garethjjones wrote:
To replace the drives I will need to backup all my data, remove the old drives, then insert the new drives and reset the config. Restore all the data (Though I only have approx. 4 Tb. And then presumably also install all my add-ons etc.

Lucky you! These recent events have given you the incentive to do something you know you should have done long ago: Make a backup of your data.

Off the top of my head -- I'm sure someone will correct me if I've gotten a detail wrong here -- the backup/restore sequence is:

1. If "approximately 4TB" means "slightly less than 4TB", or if you can clean up your NAS to bring the total below 4TB, buy a 4TB external USB drive. If it means "slightly more than 4TB" and you can't delete anything, buy two 4TB external USB drives. Amazon USA sells the 4TB Seagate Expansion Desktop drive (model STBV4000100) for $149. I'll assume that you only need one.


2. Plug the USB drive into the back of your NAS and format it to Ext4 from Frontview:Volumes:USB Storage. If you have your ReadyNAS shares mapped to drive letters on your PC, map the USB drive as well (you might need to configure its CIFS or AFP parameters in Frontview:Shares:Share Listing).


3. Go to Frontview:Status:Logs and click "Clear logs". Optionally click "Download all logs" first.


4. In Frontview:Backup:Add a New Backup Job, create a new backup job with Source set to "Volume c" and Destination set to your USB hard drive. Run it.


5. Inspect the backup to make sure it looks ok.


6. Backup your configuration through Frontview:System:Config Backup (choose "Everything").


7. Power down the NAS.


8. Remove the old drives, labeling them so you can keep them in order. Carefully put them someplace safe so you can revert to them if you need to.


9. Install the new drives, power up the NAS, configure for X-RAID2, wait for the RAID array to build. Reboot as necessary, and reboot when finished.


10. Restore in alphabetic order: Addons, Configuration, Data:
    
    • Reinstall your addons. Reboot as necessary.
    
    
    • Restore your configuration from Frontview:System:Config Backup. Reboot.
    
    
    • Create a new backup job, just like the one you used before, but with source and destination reversed. Run it.


11. Reboot with "Perform volume scan" and "Check and fix quotas" checked.

If something goes terribly wrong and you need to revert to your old drives: Power down the NAS, remove the new drives and label their order, install the old drives in their original order, say a quick prayer, and power up. The operating system and all configuration parameters are stored on the disks, so the NAS should come up in exactly the same state as before you removed the old drives.

Once the NAS is running again with the new drives, you will probably want to create new backup jobs that are more fine-grained than "Source: Volume c" and that work incrementally.