Drive migration from Synology to UGreen

[Slartibartfast]

I'm in a similar position to @Enquiries in this thread: https://ask.nascompares.com/showthread.php?tid=11998

That is I'm looking at migrating from Synology to UGREEN but My question is more about the order of operations in relation to swapping drives.

I currently have two 6TB drives in a Synology DS225+ and am looking at migrating to a UGREEN DPX 4800 Plus with the intention of reusing the same drives. I'm aware I will need to reformat the drives in order to use them in UGREEN's environment and that RSync will be my friend, but I'm still unsure of the specific order in which I should do things.

Currently my two drives are in a RAID 1 setup and I intend to get an extra drive and extend this to RAID 5 in the DPX 4800 Plus and I'm wanting to know the best way to go about doing this.

Should I:

1. Put the new drive in the DXP 4800 Plus
   
2. Connect both NAS's to the network
   
3. RSync the data across
   
4. Remove one of the discs from the DS225+ and install it in the DPX 4800 Plus (and reformat)
   
5. Allow the DPX 4800 Plus to sync it's data across both disks (I guess in RAID1)
   
6. Remove the other of the disc from the DS225+ and install it in the DPX 4800 Plus (and reformat)
   
7. Allow the DPX 4800 Plus to sync it's data across all three disks into a RAID5 arrangement
   
   

Will this even work (ie. going from: Single Disk > RAID1 > RAID5), or is there a better way to do things?


Thanks for your help,
Slarti.

[ed]

Your migration plan is sensible, and the sequence you outlined will work safely. The key is that you never rely on the old RAID1 disks during the rebuild and you always copy the data first while the Synology pool is still healthy. UGREEN can grow arrays, but starting from a clean state is always safer.

Your original idea is fine, but here’s the cleanest and safest flow:

Start the DXP4800 Plus with one new drive and initialize it in basic mode. Connect both NAS units on the network and copy your data from the DS225 Plus to the new UGREEN volume using rsync or File Station. Once the data is fully copied, take one of the old 6TB drives out of the Synology and place it in UGREEN. Reformat it and convert the UGREEN pool into RAID1. After that rebuild completes, take the second Synology 6TB drive, add it to the UGREEN, reformat it, and expand the array from RAID1 to RAID5. This gives you a clean migration path without ever risking your source data.

If you want a faster option, you can begin by creating RAID1 straight away using one new drive and one of the old drives, then copy the data from the remaining Synology disk, and finally add that last disk to migrate RAID1 into RAID5. Both routes work, but the first method is the safest because the Synology remains untouched until the data is fully copied.

Also possible to faster copy data using USB SATA docking station. https://amzn.to/4q7UfiK