I am trying to figure out how to upgrade my Synology NAS and convert from EXT4 to BRTFS and end up with only one volume. I would like to do it as safely as possible. My next priority is to do it as quickly as possible.
Will has numerous videos about the benefits of BTRFS, and I am totally convinced I should use that format. However, I could not find any videos from him showing how to convert from EXT4 to BRTFS for various scenarios. I imagine my situation is pretty common, with someone moving from an old 2-bay NAS to a new 4-bay one.
Equipment – I am upgrading from an old Synology ds214se because it was well past its prime. I purchased a new ds923+ and already can see dramatic improvements in performance. The old ds214se had 2 relatively new 8TB Seagate IronWolf HDDs in it. The new ds923+ has those two drives plus an additional two new Synology 12 TB drives (HAT3300-12T).
Files – I have about 2.8 TB of data on the NAS. It most equally divided between an archive of music files and another archive of photos, including lots of hi-res RAW files and Photoshop files (I am an avid photographer). There is one more relatively small folder backups of various documents on my PC. So, mostly, the NAS is a server for my music and photo files.
Initial Backup – Before doing anything else, I backed up everything on the old ds214se to an external Seagate 16 TB USB drive using USB Copy.
Move Old Drives – After backing up the old ds214se, I simply removed the drives from them and installed them in my new ds923+. When I started the ds923+ for the first time with the old drives in it, everything worked flawlessly. So far, so good!
DSM Version – When I started up the ds923+, it prompted me to update to DSM 7.2. The old ds214se was running DSM 7.1. I updated the DSM on the ds923+ without any issues.
Adding New Drives – With everything working on the ds923+, I added the two new 12TB Synology drives. I wonder if I did this too soon and should have waited until later. Anyway, I added them, and then the NAS has to load the new drives, which took a long time even though they were blank. Eventually, the new drives were added, but have not yet expanded the storage pool.
Second Backup – After installing the two new Synology 12 B drives, I made a backup to another USB drive using HyperBackup. This USB drive is different than the one I used for the USB copy backup. So, now I have two complete backups.
Next Steps? – Now I am wondering what my next steps should be. It seems I have two main options: 1) create a second volume on the NAS using BTRFS, copy all the data on the NAS to that volume, and then delete Volume 1, or 2) wipe all the hard drives in the NAS and then create a new Volume 1 in BTRFS and upload files from the backup. It seems the second option would take much longer.
Please let me know how I should proceed. Also, I have a few other questions:
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When I researched things online, one website said to perform data scrubbing first. Is this necessary?
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If I use the first option (create new volume, copy to it, and delete old volume), can I actually complete remove the old Volume 1 and then rename the remaining volume as Volume ?
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I am okay with having just one storage pool and one volume, though I also am okay with separating them if there is some benefit. For example, should I have the 8 TB drives as one volume and the 12 TB drives as another?
Below is screenshot of my current setup from Storage Manager.
