Moving Folders to a New Network Storage Device

[larrygm1]

I have a collection of discs that are hosted on a Thecus N5200. Unfortunate, the Thecus device is going to be full in the next several months. I've noted that the main folder cannot be copied to a secondary drive. It plays, with some sound and video problems.

I have an N7700 Pro waiting in the wings. Does anyone know if this feat is possible? Can the RAID array on the N5200 be migrated to the N7700, then the N7700's drives be replaced one at a time with larger ones?

Thanks for everyone assistance!

 

[Ch3vr0n]

I figure your question belongs more in a computer tech forum and not on the slysoft forums. It's has nothing to do with any of slysofts products or high definition software/hardware in the most remote possibilities.

 

[markcu]

Hi,

i have done this exact thing, moved from a thecus N5200 to an N7700.

There are a couple of ways to approach this.

whatever approach you chose there is one key thing to remember....

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP.......

Method one.

The architecture of the two boxes is the same. And I am told that you can take the drives out of the n5200 and put them in the n7700 and it should work...

In fact I have done this and it did work as I recall.

It is however very nerve wrecking to wait to see if your data is still intact when the N7700 comes up....

once you have done that you can use raid expansion to add in the extra two drives (the N7700 can hold 7 drives).

This in itself is a very time consuming event as the box performs raid expansion.

I am assuming you are using raid 5, this dosn't help when it come to raid expansion due to the overhead of the calculations and moving the data about.


Method 2. (far easier and safer in my view)

Drop some disks in the NN7700 (you can start with just one disk)
Get it up on the network
Use a PC (or whatever) to copy from the N5200 to the N7700

If you cant put all 7 disks in the n7700 at once than you can use raid expansion to grow the raid as you add disks.

This is my preferred method as I consider it safe than moving the physical disks themselves.


Eventually I replaced the N7700's I had with N8800's and used method 2 to do the migrations, but it's a personal choice I guess based on your circumstances.

Hope this helps, let me know if you need any more information.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[markcu]

I figure your question belongs more in a computer tech forum and not on the slysoft forums. It's has nothing to do with any of slysofts products or high definition software/hardware in the most remote possibilities.

Hi, i used my NAS boxes as Media stores for all my blu-rays (backed up via sly-soft)

So it kind of does belong here, although of course you could use these boxes to store any thing you like.

Not trying to start a row, just thought I'd share my view.

There does tend to be a fair few hardware questions around NAS hardware, media streamers, and networked playback..

Maybe we need a forum for "networked home"

Cheers,

Mark.

 

[incendivm]

It seems from your post that you're looking to expand the available drive space by taking out a 500GB (as a for instance) and popping in a 750GB, waiting for the RAID to propagate to the fresh drive, and continuing on down the line.

That won't work as you expect it to. If the drives don't need to be the same capacity from the start (which I think they do), they certainly are partitioned to equal size. Meaning, if you RAID together 3 500GB and a 750GB, I'm fairly sure you'd end up with 4 500GB partitions and that last 250GB left hanging in the wind.

If you're not using RAID5, you should be.

The easiest and most efficient way of transferring your files to another machine would probably be to go with...

Drop some disks in the NN7700 (you can start with just one disk)
Get it up on the network
Use a PC (or whatever) to copy from the N5200 to the N7700

Does the N7700 have an eSATA connection? If all else fails, you could just run it with the case open, temporarily. Here's a link to a 2TB eSATA/USB2.0 drive that I have two of. They work wonderfully and are surprisingly low-priced. It can be connected to an internal SATA connector, just make sure you do it while the machine is off. If it has eSATA connectors, the eSATA controller will probably be able to handle hot plugging. fyi :aiee:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822207017
eSATA or SATA connectors are not provided with the drive, btw.