Moving from Synology

[Aeducan]

I have a Synology NAS that is almost to capacity (2 4TB disks in JBOD) and am trying to figure out how to move those 2 disks over to a freeNAS server while adding 4 more 4TB drives without losing data. I would like to have some form of redundancy as well. Any help is appreciated

 

[adrianwi]

The only way to achieve this with redundancy is to find somewhere else to store the data whilst you setup FreeNAS to use all 6 disks, and then copy the data back onto the new zpool you'll create. You could achieve it without redundancy, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Mannekino]

Maybe this would be a solution:

• Build your new FreeNAS server and create a VDev and storage pool with 3 of your 4 new disks with RAIDZ1 redundancy (if this is acceptable to you depending on your use case).
• Move the data from your current Synology NAS to the new storage pool created on your FreeNAS server.
• Do a wipe (secure erase for example) of your two old 4 TB drives.
• Create a new VDev from the remaining 3 drives and either create a second storage pool or expand the current one by adding the new VDev (I'm not an expert but I believe this is possible).

If you want to create a single Vdev of all your 6 drives with RAIDZ2 for example you would be needing temporary storage to move your data.

Would like to hear some feedback on this idea from experts. Would a storage pool with two Vdevs of three drives with RAIDZ1 end up with the same amount of storage as a single storage pool with a single VDev with six drives and RAIDZ2? In both case you would be sacrificing two drives for redundancy.

Furthermore, is it wise to have a VDev with 6 drives and only RAIDZ1? I feel like RAIDZ1 would be fine up to 4-5 drives, but would you want to have more redundancy if you go beyond that?

 

[danb35]

(I'm not an expert but I believe this is possible).

Of course it is, and the manual explains how to do it.

Furthermore, is it wise to have a VDev with 6 drives and only RAIDZ1?

No, it isn't. Nor is it wise to have any number of drives > 1 TB in RAIDZ1. But there are a couple of ways that OP's intentions could be accomplished:

• Set up a pool with the four new disks as striped mirrors, migrate the data to those disks, then extend the pool with the old disks as another mirror. Simple to do through the GUI, safe, but it simultaneously uses more space for redundancy, and has worse redundancy.
• Create a degraded RAIDZ2 pool, migrate the data there, then resilver the two old disks into it. Simple enough in principle, but must be done through the CLI, and leaves your data without redundancy while resilvering the first disk (though as you have no redundancy now, that may not be much of a concern).

 

[Aeducan]

Thanks for the answers all. Looks like i am headed to get some more drives

 

[Mr. Slumber]

Please also think of the "@eadir" problem of Synology boxes. I didn't knew this before I wanted to move my Synology data to my FreeNAS server but sadly had to find out, that my Synology (also indexing was disabled) altered the file structure oy my data which means it added to every folder a (sometimes) hidden subfolder called "@eadir". Normally you will not see these folders but when you try to migrate your data e.g. via rsync well I really was stunned finding these thousands of extra "@eadir" folders on my FreeNAS server not knowing they actually were on my Synology box.

Found a quick'n'dirty solution for that. Try at your own risk. Good luck! :)

 

[garm]

Please also think of the "@eadir" problem of Synology boxes. I didn't knew this before I wanted to move my Synology data to my FreeNAS server but sadly had to find out, that my Synology (also indexing was disabled) altered the file structure oy my data which means it added to every folder a (sometimes) hidden subfolder called "@eadir". Normally you will not see these folders but when you try to migrate your data e.g. via rsync well I really was stunned finding these thousands of extra "@eadir" folders on my FreeNAS server not knowing they actually were on my Synology box.

Found a quick'n'dirty solution for that. Try at your own risk. Good luck! :)

Or simply ignore them when you copy over the data?

rsync -avz —exclude=“@eadir” /src dest:foo/bar

 

[Mr. Slumber]

rsync -avz —exclude=“@eadir” /src dest:foo/bar

Didn't try that but next time. Thanks :)