Best Way to Consolidate 4 NAS Servers down to 2 new NAS devices without buying new HD's

[kevinfor2014]

We currently have 4 Older ReadyNAS boxes (NV,NV+ Business Pro, RN716X with drives from 750GB up to 10TB - Larger drives in bigger NAS devices) we woulld like to consolidate down to 2 new units.. (RN628X, RN528X )without purchasing any new HDD -

Would the best way to do this.. Pull one HD (the largest) from each of the older NAS (so it breaks the redundancy but still access data RAID5/XRAID2) populate the 628X with initally 10TB, 10TB 8TB 6TB Get the data off the RN716X onto new /other NAS devices by manually copying via mapped drives.. (or drag/dropfrom one NAS to the other via Windows Desktop)   then install the rest of the largest drives into the 628x... from the 716x - then  so in the end it looks like

RN628X 10TB 10, 8, 6,6,6 4, 4

RN528X 4TB, 4, 4 3, 3, 2, 1.5, 750GB

so when the 750GB drive fails in the future.. move the 4TB down from the 628 into the 528, & buy a new 10TB to install into the 628 - the 528 is currently in the same physical location & will backup the "most important data from the 628x " but the 528 will eventually be moved offsite.. -  we would also like to take the "most critical data" sync with an online backup like MS Azure, AWS, Crashplan - is that possible?  or is the only supported ReadyCloud..?  Ideally we would like to install some client software on each Win10 PC to automatically backup to readynas unique folder  -rather then specify "new backup job" on the NAS GUI - any suggestions on client software? crashplan couldn't do "mapped drives"

I'm just wondering if this is the best approach as we don't have budget for all 10TB drives and if Raid5/XRAID2 is the best - as we have never had 2 HDD Fail in a NAS at the same time, and are usually very quick at replacing any failed HDD..  Thanks.. 

[Sandshark]

It's hard to answer this completely, as you have not said what drive sizes are in which NASes, how full they are, nor the use of each existing NAS (primary or backup).  But I will comment on some of the implementation plan.

Personally, I would have upgraded the processor and memory on the Pro BE, installed OS6 on it, and bought bigger drives for it instead of spending the money on the new NASes (that is what I did instead of going for a new NAS).  But if this is a production environment, you may be wanting to eliminate the older units proactively before they start having problems, you may need to have more future expansion capability, or you may need the 10GB Ethernet or other performance enhanements of the newer NASes.

If everything is backed up between all these devices, then the risk is reduced that you'll lose eveything if a drive fails after you have intentionally made all the arays non-redundant.  But it still has risks.  If anything isn't backed up, this is highly risky.

I recommend you use NAS backup jobs instead of dragging and dropping via Windows,  Putting a Windows machine in the middle results in a "bucket brigade" instead of a direct transfer.

I use Acronis True Image for my PC backups to the NAS and a built-in Rsync NAS-to-NAS backup for backing up NAS content.  For offsite NAS-to-NAS backup, I still use the built-in Rsync and use ZeroTier for the VPN between them.  Since I keep critical data on the NAS, I don't do an offsite backup of PC's.  There are some decent open source solutions, but Aronis is worth the money to me.

Crashplan can do mapped drives, though the implementation may not meet your needs.  See Backing_Up_Files_From_A_Windows_Network_Drive.  I believe that another option is to create a junction (aka hard link) to the NAS folder instead of a mapped drive.