When I bought it, I inserted a single HDD and played a little, trying to understand the QTS (I migrated from other NAS manufacturer).
Then I added two more HDDs, configured them as RAID1 and left the first HDD as a single HDD (JBOD) for storing some non-important stuff.
It is turned out that the 1st HDD is a “system”, so some apps can only be installed on that HDD and configs (some or all?) stored there as well.
I do not like that system data is stored on single disk and I’d like to change this (also, I need to replace that HDD as it is a bit old).
What is the best approach to do this?
I can backup everything, re-configure the NAS from the scratch (inserting SSD first and using it for system only OR creating RAID1 at the first instance) and then copy everything back.
However, this will take days for copying.
Are there any easy way to do that (preferably without copying RAID1 content twice. Sure I will backup content first, but do not want to copy the content second time back to the NAS)?
If the backup/re-configure/restore is the only option, can I skip copy data over network somehow? (attaching HDD that I will backup to directly to the NAS for example as from my understanding it should be a bit faster).
Can I then remove the old drive and migrate from RAID1 back to JBOD (or other single disk options if any)?
Or you meant this will be my new RAID1 so I move stuff that is currently on the disk somewhere else and move my old RAID1 content to this new location?
You painted yourself into that corner sadly. The system volume (QTS) or System Pool (QuTS) [you sadly never discloused the used OS as your NAS supports both] is used as default app storage.
That said your settimgs and all system relevant data is spanned across all internal drives, on a couple of RAID1 that you cannot see via GUI means. So those are safe
If you want to setup your system with a new system (should not be a single drive) you can remove that single drive and promote that RAID1 to system (you will lose all apps as there is no way to save apps or app settings)
Some QPKGs support volume migration after they have been installed, but I don’t know how reliable it is. Or if it will auto-update QPKG locations if a secondary (or later) volume is promoted to system.
It is QTS, sorry I did not even know about the QuTS %-)
What will happening if I simply remove the single HDD?
Will the NAS start?
Can the RAID1 volume be promoted to system?
I do not really care about apps installed on the single HDD as I can re-install them.
As for data, if I understand correctly, I should be able to connect the drive to linux machine and copy data.
I’m not really worrying about apps as I can re-install them (only few apps in use in my case as the NAS used as files storage mostly). But some apps I use are installed on the system volume only and cannot be migrated.
My main concerns: configs and complication process of replacing the HDD (I’m replacing disks in my NAS once in a few years one by one).
You can save your system settings from the control panel and download them to your computer. Some apps like Container Station or Virtualization station have settings that can be exported. You need to do that from within the apps.
I’ve backed up all data on the single and RAID volumes (well, as it turned out – almost all), turned off the NAS, removed the single HDD that was system, turned NAS on and some time later it automatically made RAID volume system. I only clicked ‘restore system shares’ to re-create ‘Public’ folder. All data on RAID volume was as before. Apps that were previously installed on single system volume were installed automatically (probably some confins reset to default, but I do not care).
Then I inserted a new HDD, created new Single volume and copied data back from backup.
That is it.
P.S. Using HBS3 to backup data is much slower then copying data over 2.5G network. i do not know why. I have a set of big files there, not thousands of small files. Tried NTFS and EXT4 – no changes. When backing up data using HBS3 from the single volume to the HDD in USB enclosure attachet to the NAS – the speed was ~60 MB/s (versioning and data integrity were turned OFF). When copying data from PC from source (as samba share to the single volume) to destination (as samba share the same HDD in enclosure attached to the NAS) – the speed was ~120 MB/s. Restoring was faster – about 130+ MB/s.
P.P.S I’ve forgotten to back up content of ‘Web’ folder that was on system disk where I had some custom app
HBS is likely slower because when you copy files directly, it’s just copying them. HBS is doing other things like checking versions, space available, etc. It may not seem like it has other stuff to process but it does.
I am glad you got everything restored and up and running.
And trust me - I know how you feel on the stuff you forgot to back up. Been there. Done that!
