Best way to move from 4x10T RAID10 pool to 6x20T SHR pool on ds1618+?

Synology
1

Good afternoon and thank you Will for your videos and this collaboration space! I’m not new to synology (been using one for a number of years), but I am new to the process of expanding my space. Before I start my project I’m looking for help/answers on the BEST way to do it.

Currently I have a 6bay 1618+ on the latest DSM and it’s populated with 4x10T spinners and a one off 1T SSD. It has two pools, one 4x10T RAID10 pool and then just one pool only on the SSD. I plan on taking all of these drives out and populating the 1618+ with 6x20T Exos X20 drives and just having one SHR (likely SHR2) pool. Currently, the 4x10T has 10T used and about 12 shares folders with a handful of apps installed (container manager with 1 image and hyperbackup). All the data on this pool needs to be copied over to the new SHR pool. My main concern is keeping the shared folders (including permissions) intact. I plan on using one of the 20T as an intermediary so that I can keep the 4x10T array intact for archival purposes and incase this all blows up in my face. What is my best course of action? I’m going to detail what I plan to do and highlight the questions I have inline, but I would really appreciate if the community can give me feedback and point out if I’m doing something wrong or if there is a better way!

My plan:

  1. slide one of the new 20T drives into the only open slot and then create a single pool/volume in this 20T drive
  2. download a backup of my synology configuration and also make sure it’s backed up in the cloud
  3. stop all file services so things cannot be changed during the rest of this migration
  4. use hyperbackup to backup everything on the 4x10T pool to the newly created pool on the 20T drive. I’m guessing I’ll be using “local folder” as the option in hyperbackup?
  5. use hyperbackup to backup a random small folder off the SSD pool while at the same time making sure to again backup the synology configuration and apps data to an offsite cloud backup (rsync.net).
  6. power the synology off and pull the 4x10T drives and the SSD
  7. slide 5 new 20T disks into the synology while leaving the 20T disk that has the copied data on it in the 1618+
  8. turn on the 1618+ and then initialize the 5 new disks and create a new SHR pool (haven’t decided on SHR2 yet, but will probably do SHR2)
  9. use hyperbackup to restore the backup from the single 20T to the newly created 5x20T pool
  10. use hyperbackup to restore the random small folder from the SSD plus configuration and apps data from the cloud
  11. let things stabilize and monitor for a number of days
  12. eventually add the original 20T intermediary disk into the new SHR pool

First, is this the right course of action? And second, my most important concern is how will the above impact my shared folders? How will synology know that the shared folders have now been moved twice and how will synology now know that the shared folders exist in this new pool which is likely going to have a different volume path, etc? Also will my shared folder permissions and all that remain intact? I’m really most concerned over this shared folder configuration and making sure it’s kept 100% intact and I’m not really sure if the above accomplishes that or if there is a better way? I’d also like to keep the rest of my synology configuration and apps and their data intact as well. Will the above also accomplish that?

Thank you to the community for your help, best guidance, and any explanations in advance!

2

If you go from a RAID10 to a SHR storage pool, you have to start from scratch in Storage Manager. That is delete the RAID10 pool (which deletes all data), replace the disks, build a new storage pool, and restore all data from backup.

3

Through much trial and error, I’ve found the best way to accomplish what I set out to do.

  1. Use one of the new 20T disks as an intermediary. Change the location of all shared folders to the 20T disk. You can copy them too if you’re paranoid.
  2. Hyperbackup all apps and configuration to 20T disk as well. Then uninstall the ones that are on the original 4x10T pool.
  3. Remove the old 5x10T pool and put it away for safe keeping.
  4. Slide in 5x20T and initialize a SHR2 pool.
  5. Again, change the location of all shared folders to the new pool.
  6. Restore your hyperbackup from #2 to reinstall the apps and bring back configuration data.
  7. Get rid of the intermediary 20T pool/volume and then add it to the new SHR2 pool and then expand the volume.

I’m still not even to step 6, so expect this to all take a number of days. But FYI, this is the fastest way. I originally had put in 2x20T and made an SHR pool and copied the data and then tried converting the SHR pool to an SHR2 pool with the remaining 4 disks. It would have resulted in 3 steps, but after 3 days on step 1 the whole thing failed when it got to step 2. It was a total waste of almost 4 days in this process and after reading online I came to find out this whole conversion process was likely to take weeks if not months. If anyone finds this later, don’t be me… if you want SHR2, initialize a NEW pool… don’t even try to convert.

4

It is interesting to hear what you say about SHR2 (upgrade from SHR versus create new).