9 hours ago
Thanks for your message — happy to help you plan this out. You’re right that moving from EXT4 to BTRFS on a Synology NAS isn’t something you can just “convert in place.” Your strategy of backup → delete → rebuild → restore is indeed the correct approach. Here’s how I’d recommend you go about it step by step:
⸻
1️⃣ Back Up Your Data
• Use Hyper Backup to back up all the data on your EXT4 volume to your external 4TB USB drive.
• For apps: Hyper Backup doesn’t cover everything (as you noted). The apps themselves will need to be reinstalled manually later — you can still export their settings if the app allows it, but many don’t.
• Take note of your shared folder structure, permissions, and user accounts for easier recreation later.
⸻
2️⃣ Delete and Rebuild the Volume
• Once you’re absolutely sure your backup is complete and verified:
• Delete the current EXT4 volume.
• Recreate a new BTRFS volume on the same storage pool.
This will wipe the existing data, so double-check your backup before you do this.
⸻
3️⃣ Restore Your Data
• Use Hyper Backup to restore your data and shared folders from the USB backup to the new BTRFS volume.
• Recreate any shared folder permissions or custom settings that weren’t backed up.
⸻
4️⃣ Reinstall and Reconfigure Apps
• Manually reinstall Virtual Machine Manager, Container Manager, and any other apps you need.
• Unfortunately, these apps don’t back up configurations, so you’ll need to reconfigure your VMs and containers manually — it’s a pain, but at least your VM disk images (if stored on a separate volume) won’t necessarily need to be recreated if that volume wasn’t deleted.
⸻
1️⃣ Back Up Your Data
• Use Hyper Backup to back up all the data on your EXT4 volume to your external 4TB USB drive.
• For apps: Hyper Backup doesn’t cover everything (as you noted). The apps themselves will need to be reinstalled manually later — you can still export their settings if the app allows it, but many don’t.
• Take note of your shared folder structure, permissions, and user accounts for easier recreation later.
⸻
2️⃣ Delete and Rebuild the Volume
• Once you’re absolutely sure your backup is complete and verified:
• Delete the current EXT4 volume.
• Recreate a new BTRFS volume on the same storage pool.
This will wipe the existing data, so double-check your backup before you do this.
⸻
3️⃣ Restore Your Data
• Use Hyper Backup to restore your data and shared folders from the USB backup to the new BTRFS volume.
• Recreate any shared folder permissions or custom settings that weren’t backed up.
⸻
4️⃣ Reinstall and Reconfigure Apps
• Manually reinstall Virtual Machine Manager, Container Manager, and any other apps you need.
• Unfortunately, these apps don’t back up configurations, so you’ll need to reconfigure your VMs and containers manually — it’s a pain, but at least your VM disk images (if stored on a separate volume) won’t necessarily need to be recreated if that volume wasn’t deleted.