ASK NC

Rob -

Bought a QNAP HS-453DX-8G on your recommendation three years ago, and love it. Problem is, the power pole right outside our facility was hit by lightning, and the “surge” came in through the ground connection, which fried everything connected via copper (100bTX or 1000bT) including the QNAP. That’s one of the challenges of living in the “lightning capital of the world” (Florida). Nonetheless, I’ve replaced the MBs on several PCs and the HDDs were completely unaffected — the PCs booted right up, afterwards.
Now my question: I’m going to buy another QNAP HS-453DX-8G, and I wonder, should I just transfer the SSDs into the brand new unit, then turn it on? Or should I perform any intermediate step(s)? I can virtually guarantee that the old unit was not writing, or even being accessed, when the lightning hit. Thanks, keep up the GREAT work!

I'm sorry to hear about the lightning strike damaging your QNAP NAS. It's good to hear that the SSDs in the QNAP were not affected by the lightning strike.

Transferring the SSDs to the new QNAP HS-453DX-8G should be straightforward, but it's always a good idea to have a backup of your data just in case. If you have a recent backup of your data, you can safely transfer the SSDs to the new QNAP unit and power it on.

Before you do this, you should make sure that the firmware on the new QNAP unit is up to date. You can download the latest firmware from the QNAP website and install it on the new unit before transferring the SSDs.

Once the firmware is up to date, power off the new QNAP unit and transfer the SSDs from the old unit to the new unit. Make sure the SSDs are properly seated in the new unit and power it on. The new QNAP unit should recognize the existing SSDs and be ready to use.

If the QNAP unit doesn't recognize the existing SSDs or if you encounter any issues, you can try to restore your data from your backup. If you don't have a recent backup, you may need to seek the assistance of a professional data recovery service.