Migration from an old model

[RMerlin]

I'll be migrating someone's old DS409+ to a newer model (yet to be determined, I haven't decided for sure yet if I'll stick with Synology or move them to QNAP since I'm more familiar with their products)

From what I can see, migration is only supported with DSM 6 (and this device is still on 4.2, the last release for that model).

I assume that means there are no migration method possible, short of manually configuring everything on a pair of new disks, then copying the content, however I wanted to check just in case: any other migration method available between such an old model and a newer one?

All I need to migrate are files, shares, and users. There are no database or particular application. Copying the data ain't so bad (I assume Synology supports rsync like any major NAS), I mostly hoped to avoid having to recreate all the shares and users.

Thanks.

 

[RMerlin]

Also related question: DS218+ or DS718+ as a replacement? Call me weird, bu the DS218+ is so inexpensive that I wonder if there's any gotcha about it The DS718+ pricing is more in line with what I would expect (based on my experience with QNAP and Asustor products).

 

[yk101]

Also related question: DS218+ or DS718+ as a replacement? Call me weird, bu the DS218+ is so inexpensive that I wonder if there's any gotcha about it The DS718+ pricing is more in line with what I would expect (based on my experience with QNAP and Asustor products).

Migration is straight forward - rsync works really well. The gotcha with 218 is simple - only 2 drives are supported. While you can get the capacity by using larger drives, it would be very difficult to get performance out of that toy. 718 is a bit better because of CPU, but don’t expect much of iOPS out of the base configuration either. 9-series devices, like 918, will provide better performance with the same CPU as 718. I know that 918 has 2 m.2 slots for SSD cache that can improve performance further if needed.

 

[dosborne]

Although I can't really speak about this specific case (Synology) I can say I'm generally not a fan of migrating (anything). In some cases, new features and capabilities would not be utilized or optimized and you are never really sure what got migrated (assuming migration in this case is configuration, users, data, etc)

I prefer to manually configure a new device and examine the capabilities. New options may result in better performance. Yes, more work, but unless you have many users, shares and other config info, worth 'cleaning up" as you go. Copying the data is of course easy enough with many tools and options that I'm sure you are already aware of.

 

[RMerlin]

Migration is straight forward - rsync works really well. The gotcha with 218 is simple - only 2 drives are supported.

Not a problem. While this customer currently has a four-bay, they only have two disks, and the total size of their data is only a few hundred gigabytes - they're nowhere to filling the current pair of 1 TB they have... So if I went with a pair of 2 TB, this might last them for another 10 years...

718 is a bit better because of CPU, but don’t expect much of iOPS out of the base configuration eithe

Their needs are basically Word, Excel, and one small Access database, for a network of 6-7 users. So, not really worried about IOps. They have a more significant bottleneck on their current network setup actually (100 Mbps VoIP phones with daisy-chained PCs).


Considering the fairly small amount of data, I guess buying a new pair of HDDs and doing a manual config + rsync between both NAS would be realistic. I probably have about a dozen users to re-create and a half dozen shares, so not a big deal. I just wanted to see what were all my available options. Was just hoping to save on the disks since one of the two disks is brand new (replaced a few weeks ago, previous disks started developing bad sectors). But at these low capacities, a pair of new disks won't make a big impact on the budget.