Transfer the hard drive from a failing Readynas 312? Planning for inevitable failure..

nightfly44 wrote:

It hums a bit louder than the normal (and louder than the others I have)

The Readynas has two 20TB Toshiba hard drives

That might not mean the NAS is failing.  Large drives use more power than the smaller sizes.  That also means more heat (since all the power eventually becomes heat).  So it is not surprising that the fan is working harder.  

In any event, the chassis fan can be replaced if it is failing.

nightfly44 wrote:

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully just transferred a working hard drive from one Readynas 312 to another; would it just boot up normally? As long as the firmware matches?

I haven't done this with the RN312, but I have migrated between other ReadyNAS models.  It does work. 

As far as firmware goes, the destination NAS will compare the firmware in its flash against the disks.  If the firmware in the flash is newer, it will update the disks from the flash.  If the firmware in the flash is older, then the flash is updated from the disks.  But I do suggest matching the firmware first.

Before migration, then you might want to do power up the NAS with a spare disk now.  Make sure the firmware is up to date.  Then power down the NAS and power up with that disk in second slot -  just to make sure the spare chassis completely works.