Tricky-Ricky Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Following on from finding that my old NAS has died, and ordering a new but different make, I am now wondering if I will run into problems trying to run the old HDD with all my data etc on it in the new NAS, I am worried that it will want to delete and clean the old HDD during set up? any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Following on from finding that my old NAS has died, and ordering a new but different make, I am now wondering if I will run into problems trying to run the old HDD with all my data etc on it in the new NAS, I am worried that it will want to delete and clean the old HDD during set up? any ideas? NAS's are overrated IMHO. You can get almost the same coverage with a USB drive if you set it to be shared with your other computers. O.K, you will loose the ability to access the drive remotely but do you need that facility? Anyway, I don't see any reason though why your new NAS should do anything to the old HD, I've swapped drives from USB enclosures into NAS units without any loss of data. Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Following on from finding that my old NAS has died, and ordering a new but different make, I am now wondering if I will run into problems trying to run the old HDD with all my data etc on it in the new NAS, I am worried that it will want to delete and clean the old HDD during set up? any ideas? What software were you using? What was the old NAS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Following on from finding that my old NAS has died, and ordering a new but different make, I am now wondering if I will run into problems trying to run the old HDD with all my data etc on it in the new NAS, I am worried that it will want to delete and clean the old HDD during set up? any ideas? What software were you using? What was the old NAS? It was a Net Gear Stora, was only using a single disc so no RAID mirror, I believe they use FXS, so that might cause a problem, I am starting to think that I might have to fit a new HDD to the new NAS and put the old HDD in a caddy and read and transfer via USB? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Following on from finding that my old NAS has died, and ordering a new but different make, I am now wondering if I will run into problems trying to run the old HDD with all my data etc on it in the new NAS, I am worried that it will want to delete and clean the old HDD during set up? any ideas? NAS's are overrated IMHO. You can get almost the same coverage with a USB drive if you set it to be shared with your other computers. O.K, you will loose the ability to access the drive remotely but do you need that facility? Anyway, I don't see any reason though why your new NAS should do anything to the old HD, I've swapped drives from USB enclosures into NAS units without any loss of data. Pete The reason for having a NAS isn't just for extra disk space. The redundancy via RAID is worth it alone, but you can also run apps on there without the need for a server/pc to always be on, torrent clients etc etc. I send torrents to my NAS from my phone and it goes away and downloads them while I'm out and about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 It might be for the best Ricky, it's a hell of a risk to take otherwise. I always play safe with data and different software! Seriously though, some of you folks really should look into UnRAID as a way of making your life easier. Basically, it's this: 1. Take one old PC, with lots of space for drives and lots of SATA connectors. Everything else is secondary (CPU, RAM etc) 2. Get two drives, one of them as big as the biggest drive you'll ever want to fit. That one is the parity drive, and does not hold data. 3. Install drives, then install UnRAID software via USB and boot. 4. Set it all up (takes about an hour unless you want to preclear the drives). 5. Transfer stuff onto it. That's it. You can add as many drives as you want as long as they're not bigger than the parity drive. If one of the drives fails, you simply replace it with a blank one and the parity drive rebuilds it for you. It's such a simple solution, as long as you're prepared to spend an hour or so learning the basics of linux, or even just follow the guides that are out there word for word like I did. It's not as redundant as a proper RAID solution, but it does a bloody good job of pretending it is for much less. If anybody wants to know more, I'll let you know about my setup and what I did (and the challenges I overcame) as a complete NAS/linux noob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Can anyone recommend a nice cheap on line shop for a 2tb WD or Seagate HDD? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I just buy mine from Amazon, cheap there as anywhere else. It's the WD Red drives you want, btw. They are the market leader for NAS drives right now, I wouldn't touch anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daryl Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 I almost have no idea what you guys are talking about!! lol What the heck is Raid? lol Was hoping someone could point me in the general direction of some kit that would do what I need, and I could buy it, set it up and be done with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 There is kit that will do that, but ultimately it's not very flexible and it's usually expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 (edited) What the heck is Raid? lol RAID stand for "redundant array of inexpensive/independant disks". It can be used to increase the reliability, performance or both of a set number of disks. Lets say you have 2 identical disks: - You could configure them so that when you write your photo's to disk, the system automatically writes the data to both disks. The write speed would be the same as it happens in parallel, however when reading the system can request half the file from one disk and the other half from the other, effectively almost doubling the read performance. If one of those disks broke, you'd still have your data available on the other disk which after replacing the faulty disk could be resynced to restore redundancy. This would be called mirroring or RAID [level] 1. - Or you could configure them to write parts of the data accross the two disks, i.e: half the photo would be on one disk, the other half on the other. That way writing is almost twice as fast as well as reading, however, if one disk dies you would lose the data on both disks. This would be called striping or RAID 0. There are loads of RAID levels which offer various performance/reliability/cost benefits, usually for a larger number of disks, for example striping across N disks and then a parity check on the N+1th disk so that if anyoneone of the disks dies you can figure out what the data should have been. Personally I'd go for something with RAID 1/mirroring and warning lights for when a disk dies, make sure you look at the lights occasionally and if one is showing a failed disk, swap it out and hope the other disk doesn't fail in between. Unless there's data you really really want to ensure isn't lost (family photo's etc) in which case I'd backup somewhere on top. Haydn. Edited February 5, 2015 by HaydnH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glrnet Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I almost have no idea what you guys are talking about!! lol What the heck is Raid? lol Was hoping someone could point me in the general direction of some kit that would do what I need, and I could buy it, set it up and be done with it. Daryl, 3 years ago I had no idea what RAID was but a bit of reading and ferreting about as Dan has suggested and job's a good un, beleive me if I can sort it out a Red Bull techy will have no trouble. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I guess in red bull techy terms it would be like adding another set of rear wheels. Add them on the same axel and you'd probably get more traction for accelartion off the line, but more friction so less top speed. Add them on a seperate axel and you have another set of pros & cons. Either way if a rear tyre blew you'd have another to keep you moving, albeit maybe not at the same pace as before. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daryl Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 LOL, give me stuff to make and build, thats fine, things to do with electronics is a black art to me im afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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