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Forum Discussion
shoeminator
Jan 03, 2016Aspirant
migrating from a Pro6 (OS4) to a 516 (OS6)
Hi, I have a problem, I have a client with a venerable ReadyNAS Pro6 in situ and wants it replaced. I went with a ReadyNAS 516 hoping the migration between the two would be realitively sim...
mdgm-ntgr
Jan 03, 2016NETGEAR Employee Retired
We made some revolutionary changes in OS6, so manual reconfiguration is the way to go.
As for backing up the data from a RAIDiator 4 system to an OS6 NAS see http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/29730/~/how-do-i-back-up-data-from-a-raidiator-4-system-to-a-readynas-os-6-system%3F
shoeminator
Jan 03, 2016Aspirant
Ouch !!! That is so massively painful !!!
So I have to recreate all shares
recreate all users
recreate all groups
recreate all security settings for each user/group
ask all users on the system to take a default password and set their own (or set passwords for them)
setup all backup jobs again
..... and then migrate the data across (which is the easy bit)
there is no migration tool or assistance ?
Wow !!!!
So when upgrading OS's with ReadyNAS units we should budget for many hours of manual data re-entry !!!!
There has to be a better way - surely ? this is an SME targetted NAS !?!!
Regards,
Mark
- mdgm-ntgrJan 03, 2016NETGEAR Employee Retired
Normally we have had a more straightforward upgrade process for environments with large numbers of local users/groups on the NAS and/or shares.
But with OS6 we decided to make a revolutionary change, doing a major redesign to put us in good stead for the future.
A new OS, with a new web interface, with a different filesystem etc.
This is not a decision that we took lightly and is a very rare one.
- shoeminatorJan 03, 2016Aspirant
Hi mdgm,
Thanks for the reply .....
I understand the need for progress and progression in products - but as a user and someone who is now in hour 3 of manually recreating all settings, backup jobs, users, shares etc ..... (with many hours more to go thanks to the "non-optimal-for-bulk-data-entry" interface of OS6) and after having to factory reset the 516 three times after import ettempts ..... I also very much understand the need for some backward compatability or at least a migration tool to soften these "rare" events impacting critical product function.
Wearing my other hat (as a software engineer) I have to write migration kinds of tools for my clients when I perform a major upgrade to tools and products I support ..... I kind of hoped Netgear would offer the same courtesy :-(
Lesson learned (and now factored into future "upgrade" reccomendations)
Regards,
Mark- mdgm-ntgrJan 03, 2016NETGEAR Employee Retired
Thanks for the feedback. I will pass it on.
You may also wish to post this suggestion in the Ideas Exchange
Most users with lots of users use AD, and a large number of ordinary shares is not a common deployment scenario.
We don't support installing OS6 on legacy systems (though it can be installed on the Pro 6 using a special image - a factory reset is required)
With the size of the change we also now have new and different settings for the new products.
If we were able to make a migration tool it would likely need regular updates to account for backend config changes in the new OS.
I would not expect a similar revolutionary change for quite some time, so I would expect once you have upgraded to the 516 migrating to a newer box again at some point in the future should be more straightforward. However I cannot predict what will happen in the future and would suggest you seek some pre-sales advice on the community about what would be involved in migration ahead of your future purchases.
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