Hello,

 

I'm currently in the process of building an unRaid server, but I'm wondering in how to best transfer the data when the system is build.

At the moment all my data is on a 2-Bay Synology NAS running SHR-1.

I would rather not buy new drives as i currently don't really need extra space.

 

I was thinking I could do it like this:
1. Shut down the Synology NAS

2. Pull and format one of the drives

3. Put the drive into the unRaid server (without parity)

4. Boot the Synology NAS (Drive failure, but all data will still be intact because of SHR-1)

5. Copy the files to the unRaid server.

6. Shut the Synology NAS down, pull and format the disk and put it in the unRaid server.

7. Assign the 2nd disk as parity drive and wait for it the complete building the parity.

 

I this do-able or are there better ways?

Sounds like a working plan.

 

Just a note. You don't format drives  before you place them in unRAID - it's unRAID that formats them. And the parity drive doesn't make use of any file system so no formatting involved at all.

Ohh yeah thats what I meant, should've worded it differently.

 

But does it also format the parity drive for me? Because it would need to be formatted right? Otherwise all existing data would still be on there. Or does it overwrite everything while its building the parity?

15 minutes ago, oko2708 said:

Or does it overwrite everything while its building the parity?

 

^This.

That explains it. Thanks guys!

Your questions about formatting possibly indicate a misunderstanding of the word "format" that has gotten a lot of people in trouble. Many seem to think "format" means something very vague and nebulous, like "prepare this drive for use" (prepare it how???).

 

Format actually means "write an empty filesystem to this disk". That is what it has always meant in every operating system you have ever used.

 

Since the parity drive doesn't have a filesystem, it doesn't make any sense to format it.

 

The reason this vague idea gets people into trouble with unRAID is because unRAID parity is realtime, and any write operation to a data disk immediately updates the parity disk. So, if you "write an empty filesystem" (format) to a data disk, unRAID parity will agree the disk has an empty filesystem, and if you try to use parity to recover the data, the disk will be rebuilt with an empty filesystem.

 

If you ever have unRAID ask you if you want to format a disk that you think should have data on it that you want to keep, please ask here on the forum about how to recover that data.

2 hours ago, oko2708 said:

I would rather not buy new drives as i currently don't really need extra space.

 

I take this to mean you have full backups elsewhere of all the data currently on the Synology?

 

If not, I strongly suggest keeping the Synology intact as your backup. Unraid, or any server solution, cannot keep your data safe from user error like accidental deletion or overwrites, or catastrophic hardware failure of whatever flavour.

I do not have full backups of the drives. Only critical (non media) files are being backed up to a secondary NAS device, but the media itself is not. This would be to expensive for me to do at the moment.

 

 

7 minutes ago, oko2708 said:

I do not have full backups of the drives

Then breaking protection on the Synology to migrate data is probably not the wisest move.

1 minute ago, oko2708 said:

I do not have full backups of the drives. Only critical (non media) files are being backed up to a secondary NAS device, but the media itself is not. This would be to expensive for me to do at the moment.

 

 

 

Since all your data fits on a single disk, the cost of backup is basically the cost of a single USB hard drive. And for some data possibly the cost of DVD-R or BD-R media.

 

I recommend that people put a value in real money on the different data they have. How much money do you want to receive to intentionally destroy the contents of a specific directory of data? How much money do you want to intentionally destroy all digital copies of your photos? Do that for you data, and enter the data in a spreadsheet. That should give you an indication of how much money you should be willing to spend on safe storage. If you are fine with overwriting all data if I pay you $100-$200, then it's obvious that you don't need a backup - you don't see any real value in the data.

 

If you don't assign an actual monetary value on your data, then you will never be able to make a good decision of if you should spend $100 on a backup strategy or on some event on the next vacation or partial payment for a new TV. It isn't possible to compare apples and oranges - and since a backup costs $$$ you need to also put $$$ value on the data and $$$ value on the time it would take to recreate the data (if at all possible).

58 minutes ago, trurl said:

Format actually means "write an empty filesystem to this disk". That is what it has always meant in every operating system you have ever used.

 

You're probably right then. My understanding was that 'to format something' meant, erase all of it's  contents (and possibly change the file system if desired)

 

7 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Then breaking protection on the Synology to migrate data is probably not the wisest move.

 

I thought about that but I think the risk of something going wrong would be very small. However I will backup the files to a few (different, smaller capacity) drives to be sure no data will be lost.

 

8 minutes ago, pwm said:

If you are fine with overwriting all data if I pay you $100-$200, then it's obvious that you don't need a backup - you don't see any real value in the data.

 

That is kinda the case here. Of course it would suck if everything was suddenly gone, but it would not be a devastating loss. Everything I truly care about is being backed and stored 4 times in 3 different locations.

 

Even though in the future I would like to fully backup everything, it is not something I want to spend an extra 200 euros on right now.

4 hours ago, oko2708 said:

My understanding was that 'to format something' meant, erase all of it's  contents (and possibly change the file system if desired)

Erase doesn't really have any specific meaning. All bits on the disk have a value. Formats and deletes typically will not change most of those bits.