Migration from DS214 to DS920+ with disk upgrade scenario - is this the right way?

[Teodoro]

I've read multiple threads and guides on the topic - still creating a post to make sure I got the procedure right, especially as there are multiple steps on volume setup and adjustment!
Scenario:
- upgrading from a super-old DS214Play to a new DS920+. The old NAS will be shut down at the end of the process
- adding 1 new disk to the storage pool, moving from 2x4TB to 3x4TB (also to facilitate migration, hopefully...) and creating new volume with BTRFS (currently Ext4)
- understand no assisted migration is possible
Proposed plan:
0) preliminary full backup to external USB drive (ongoing since ages...) for safety, with 2 hyperbackup tasks: 1 task only applications and not folders; 1 task with all shared folders. I understand that even the one with applications only... is backing up also the files (eg. all the photos for DS Photo...)
1) install new DS920+ as fresh, with only 1 HD, setup as SHR (is it possible? or only Raid0 with 1 disk?), create new volume in BTRFS occupying the full 4TB
2) backup configuration from old NAS (control panel) and restore into new NAS -> I'll get basic configuration back
3) restore from USB the backup task with applications only -> this will give me all the apps, their settings and some of the related files
4) take out one 4TB disk from the old NAS. Old NAS will revert to Raid0 but still operational with all the files (correct?)
5) install this disk into the new NAS, expanding the storage pool
6) copy NAS to NAS all the remaining shared folders (with HB? or direct copy) via LAN
7) take out the remaining 4TB disk from old NAS, install it into the new NAS and expand again the storage pool
During the whole process I'll always have 2 copies of the data thanks to the USB backup, in case something goes wrong

Does it make sense? any suggestion is more than welcome as I'm by no means an expert....

Tks
teo

 

[Rusty]

setup as SHR (is it possible? or only Raid0 with 1 disk?), create new volume in BTRFS occupying the full 4TB

SHR yes. RAID# will not be possible without multiple drives.

take out one 4TB disk from the old NAS. Old NAS will revert to Raid0 but still operational with all the files (correct?

It will not revert to anything it will enter degraded state but yes it will continue to work if it was in a mirror configuration, raid1

Rest of the steps are on point. The overall plan is solid just wanted to point out these few particular steps.

good luck!

 

[Gerard]

One thing I noticed you currently have an ext4 file system, and you’re going to go to btfrs.

@Rusty can you do a hb restore and a config restore on btfrs from an ext4 file system?

 

[Rusty]

can you do a hb restore and a config restore on btfrs from an ext4 file system?

2.2 To another Synology NAS​

When backed up to another Synology NAS, data is transferred via Synology's NAS protocol.

With the aforementioned Hyper Backup, which comes with built-in technology to enhance storage efficiency as well as application and configurations backup support, you can easily back up data to a remote NAS device by installing Hyper Backup Vault on the destination, a package that allows you to view the backup tasks you received and task-related logs on the receiving device. Hyper Backup supports both the EXT4 and the Btrfs file system, but the format of backup data is not readable.

Not sure what they mean by " format of backup data is not readable", but I do know that HB will for example backup from BTRFS to EXT4 without any problems. No reason to think it won't work the other way around as well. It has been some time since I have had some EXT4 partitions to work with so not 100% sure, but KB mentioned it should work.

 

[fredbert]

Hyper Backup restore is the way to migrate when changing between file system types. However, Migration Assistant is not as it requires the target file system to be the same as the original’s.

I took the full HB backup of my ext4 based DS218+ and restored it to a new btrfs volume on my DS1520+. I then rebuilt the DS218+ to use btrfs and restored from the HB backup.

The issue is that there are some DSM settings and some packages that are excluded by HB.

 

[Dnavarroc]

Hi Teo,
Just doing same movement than you from old 214play to 920+
In my case I installed DSM7, which works fine on the 214.
Maybe obvious to as, but I guess it was huge change on behavior and performance, right?

 

[Teodoro]

Hi,

first of all I'd thank everyone for the support - I did migration over the last week and worked perfectly! Well, a lot of manual rework on the configuration... but as expected. And overall the procedure worked smoothly.
The 2 expansions of the volume with the new disk took longer than expected (probably 48 hours each, for each 4TB drive) but all good and now the NAS is working.

And.... yes.... huge huge change in performance. I'm still on DSM6.2 - but it truly is day and night - as my 214 was overloaded (Plex, Web server, DS Photo, Home Assistant Core, etc) and even the simple file transfer was slow. Now I added VMM to run Home Assistant in a simpler way - and the NAS is really fast!! One important thing is: I added 4GB of extra RAM to bring total memory to 8.