So I currently have 4x 2TB drives formatted as NTFS and about to build a unRaid box with 2x 8TB drivers (1 of them parity) and I want to get the data off the NTFS drives so I can then format them and add them to the pool.

 

Whats the best way about doing this? I've read on the wiki about mounting NTFS drives as read only via USB but that would mean individually putting them into USB caddies... any other way?

 

Thanks

Copy the data across the network between the WinOS client machine and the unraid server.

Or use the Unassigned devices plugin to mount the drives on your Unraid array then copy them directly on your machine.  Which will be quicker than copying across the LAN.  But that will require you to put them in caddies, but may end up saving you time as the copy will be faster.

So I currently have 4x 2TB drives formatted as NTFS and about to build a unRaid box with 2x 8TB drivers (1 of them parity) and I want to get the data off the NTFS drives so I can then format them and add them to the pool.

 

Whats the best way about doing this? I've read on the wiki about mounting NTFS drives as read only via USB but that would mean individually putting them into USB caddies... any other way?

If you have spare SATA slots on the unRAID server then you could plug them in there and mount them using the Unassigned devices plugin.  Using a USB caddy is an alternative.  Once done you can then either copy them over the network to the unRAID array or locally on the unRAID machine (faster but not as convenient).

Ah cool sounds like unassigned plugin is the answer as I can just have all the drives in the machine to start and then add them to the pool once finished!

 

Thanks

Depends on how the drives are formatted, I've had terrible luck getting any NTFS drive to mount in unRAID using the plugin. So I also advocate using a Windows computer, or VM if you can pass through a controller card as that will be faster than anything else.

Depends on how the drives are formatted, I've had terrible luck getting any NTFS drive to mount in unRAID using the plugin. So I also advocate using a Windows computer, or VM if you can pass through a controller card as that will be faster than anything else.

I use NTFS drives all the time and do not encounter any issues.  I wonder if it makes a difference what version of Windows was used to format the drives?

Depends on how the drives are formatted, I've had terrible luck getting any NTFS drive to mount in unRAID using the plugin. So I also advocate using a Windows computer, or VM if you can pass through a controller card as that will be faster than anything else.

I use NTFS drives all the time and do not encounter any issues.  I wonder if it makes a difference what version of Windows was used to format the drives?

NTFS drives is the only way I ever use Unassigned Devices. I think the issues have to do with the partitioning of the drive. If Windows has put multiple partions on the drive then it gets complicated.

Depends on how the drives are formatted, I've had terrible luck getting any NTFS drive to mount in unRAID using the plugin. So I also advocate using a Windows computer, or VM if you can pass through a controller card as that will be faster than anything else.

I use NTFS drives all the time and do not encounter any issues.  I wonder if it makes a difference what version of Windows was used to format the drives?

NTFS drives is the only way I ever use Unassigned Devices. I think the issues have to do with the partitioning of the drive. If Windows has put multiple partions on the drive then it gets complicated.

That would make sense.  Since I am using drives that are specifically targetting backup and/or file transfer usage they will all be formatted with a single partition covering the whole disk.  I guess there could also be issues if you use anything other than the basic partitioning scheme.

One thing that works in Korath's favour is the fact that they are 2 TB NTFS disks, which I think are more likely to "just work" than larger ones.

One thing that works in Korath's favour is the fact that they are 2 TB NTFS disks, which I think are more likely to "just work" than larger ones.

 

That could also be my problem as I'm using 3TB drives

One thing that works in Korath's favour is the fact that they are 2 TB NTFS disks, which I think are more likely to "just work" than larger ones.

 

That could also be my problem as I'm using 3TB drives

i have no problem with 3TB drives!  I think the key thing is to ensure there is only a single partition on the drives.

One thing that works in Korath's favour is the fact that they are 2 TB NTFS disks, which I think are more likely to "just work" than larger ones.

 

That could also be my problem as I'm using 3TB drives

i have no problem with 3TB drives!  I think the key thing is to ensure there is only a single partition on the drives.

 

Don't some versions of Windows get round the problem by creating a small partition (equivalent to /dev/sdx1) with some kludge code in it and then a second, much larger one (equivalent to /dev/sdx2) that it actually formats NTFS?

Stupid question time... I've setup my unraid server (woo) and installed the Unassigned drive plugin and it allows me to mount and see the contents of the NTFS drives... how do I go about copying it? If I do it via the windows machine I'm copying off the server, to the windows machine and back... kind of pointless

Stupid question time... I've setup my unraid server (woo) and installed the Unassigned drive plugin and it allows me to mount and see the contents of the NTFS drives... how do I go about copying it? If I do it via the windows machine I'm copying off the server, to the windows machine and back... kind of pointless

Google Midnight Commander

Stupid question time... I've setup my unraid server (woo) and installed the Unassigned drive plugin and it allows me to mount and see the contents of the NTFS drives... how do I go about copying it? If I do it via the windows machine I'm copying off the server, to the windows machine and back... kind of pointless

As was mentioned Midnight Command (which is included in unRAID as standard) provides a simple character based GUI that can be used from a console/telnet session.  This has long been the traditional way to do file operations locally to the server on unRAID.

 

There are also a number of dockers that can be installed that give a web based GUI for file operations but that is additional software to get installed and configured so many do not bother.

Putty into MC seems to do exactly what I wanted. Thanks guys