DSM 7.1 What if my NAS crashed and I wanted to migrate to QNAP?

[synn]

I bought my first NAS the DS920+ and am worried about getting locked into Synology. Couple questions:

1. If my NAS crashes 10 years down the road - not the drives but if the controller hardware fried itself - would I need another Synology NAS to recover my data? Can I buy a non-Synology NAS (perhaps a 6 bay QNAP) and put my drives in the same order and expect to be able to access my data on the storage pool/volumes?
2. If I need another Synology NAS, would it have to be similar to the DS920+? Worried that 10 years down it may not exist and support for the 920 long gone...
3. If I use RAID 5 instead of SHR-1 will recovery be potentially easier in a controller crash scenario?

I imagine a controller crash may result in the last few writes being interrupted and potentially leave the storage pool in a corrupted (but hopefully recoverable) state. I'm not worried about recovering those partial writes - only about recovering whatever was written successfully earlier.

And yes I know that a NAS should be backed up too but for the purposes of this discussion please assume no backup exists.

 

[Phone Guy]

I'm not expert, but I'll try to answer a couple I think I know the answer's to....

1. NO. You would not be able to insert brand a formatted drives into brand b hardware and access the data on the drives. (if that's not the right answer I'll be shocked)
1a. I believe there is a Linux distro that can read synology formatted harddrives, I think maybe its open media vault? Not sure. Also, since synology is software raid (mdadm) there may be ways to recover data without synology hardware, I am sure I read that somewhere but again not 100% sure.
2. NO. As of right now, if you had drives from a DS920 and put them into a Synology DS3622xs+ or an older DS918, the drives would be "migrate-able" from one synology hardware device, to another synology hardware device. Connection dependent, so 3.5 sata to 3.5 sata, not 2.5 for example, same number if drive bays (4 drives to 4+ slots) etc... Who know's 10 years from now, sata may become like IDE or SCSI, and just not exist anymore.
3. That one I have no idea. Maybe?

That being said, Synology is the first name in Network Storage. I doubt they are going anywhere anytime soon, but never say never. I felt comfortable in my purchase of their hardware, and I have a couple. The community support is amazing, I have never had to deal with them directly for support, I have solved my issues and answered my questions here or elsewhere online. The community online knowledge base for synology is huge.

 

[synn]

Thanks for the detailed response @Phone Guy !

same number if drive bays

To clarify - you're saying that the new NAS can have more than the 4 bays in the DS920+ right?

 

[Phone Guy]

Thanks for the detailed response @Phone Guy !


To clarify - you're saying that the new NAS can have more than the 4 bays in the DS920+ right?

oops typo... but yes you got it, you could use your 4 drives from the 920 in a 12 bay, but not in a 2 bay. As long as you can use the full drive set (all 4).

 

[Rusty]

If I use RAID 5 instead of SHR-1 will recovery be potentially easier in a controller crash scenario?

Yes. A conventional RAID would be an easier scenario for sure.

 

[Phone Guy]

Yes. A conventional RAID would be an easier scenario for sure.

I didn't think it would matter.. oh well all mine are SHR1