best way to upgrade 2*2Tb HDDs to same SSDs [TS253A]

English Storage
1

My TS253A has been workng fine for 5 years or so, but now the HDDs are beginning to fill up. Perfromance is slowing. One of the HDDs has been signalled as being prone to failure.

I would like some general advice on the easiest and least risky way of upgrading to SSD. I currently have a RAID 1 configuration, but am not sure whether to continue with that, as the data is regularly backed up onto a local machine as well as a cloud service and the server is purely for home use.

I have no other system type backups.

In my naivety I’m think that maybe the best way is to start from scratch and reconfigure the whole system with the SSDs. However, I would like to keep all the metadata associated with the files, all photo files, video and music.

Any general advice or pointers in the right direction would be most helpful.

Thanks.

Charliecat

2

From my view as you wants to keep the process simple, just “replace” the original HDD one by one, and let the QTS do to RAID rebuild.

After the process finish, the data will be kept on the new SSD, while every configuration is also there.

By the way what’s the metadata you mean in general? Thumbnails or other tags something?

3

since you have no backups, the only way to keep data is to expand the raid group by replacing one drive at a time. each time you put a drive into the NAS you will ahve to waiting until the raid is rebuilt. then swap the other one out. once raid is finally rebuilt with the two new drives, you can then expand the storage.

I have use the following guide as an example how ever since you have not shown what QTS version you are running.

https://docs.qnap.com/operating-system/qts/5.0.x/en-us/expanding-a-raid-group-by-replacing-all-disks-8BC47F81.html

4

Thanks for that.

Will there be any issues with an SSD running as Raid 1 with an HDD [albeit temporarily]? I recall reading somewhere that having both can cause problems.

By ‘metadata’ I really meant the information generated by Qmagie. Your solution will keep all of this, I think.

For clarity, I am running QTS 5.1.8.2823.

5

Thanks. Looks straightforward.

For clarity, I am running QTS 5.1.8.2823

6

Ah true, that is the data exactly we want to keep because it usually takes a long time to re-generate it. :laughing:

Btw while replacing the drives, I suggest temporarily setting the RAID Sync/Rebuild priority to high. It decreases the system service performance but allows you to wait a shorter time for the rebuild process.

7

I just noticed this question and according to my “old information” (I do not know if they changed it or not now) that “creating” a RAID with a mix of HDD and SSD will be blocked by QTS. Not sure about “replacing”

If that still true, I think the only method is to remove both drives, use some disk clone software on your PC to clone the drive from HDD to SSD and place them back to NAS in original order.