Question Can you move NAS drives from one enclosure to another

[trigger8247]

Good evening all

I have a ZYXEL 325 NAS Drive that is now obsolete and just wondered if I bough a new one could i just swap the drives from one enclosure to another or does each manufacturer use some strange format on the drives. Also had a problem with windows in that since I sign in with my windows ID I could never have all the drives already mounted and had to manually mount them and even then I could only mount one drive at a time.

Hope somebody can give me advice

Regards

Trev

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is the model of the new NAS, or have you even purchased one yet? In order to move drives, you have to do a migration and it's simpler if it's from same brand to same brand in most cases but there are exceptions and caveats to any move whether same brand or not.

 

[USAFRet]

Additionally, what drive(s)?
Size, age, etc.
Any RAID involved?

 

[Misgar]

Also had a problem with windows in that since I sign in with my windows ID I could never have all the drives already mounted and had to manually mount them and even then I could only mount one drive at a time.

By "sign in with my windows ID" does that mean you are using your Microsoft Account credentials when booting up the computer? Sorry if I'm a bit hazy, but as you will discover, I've never done this.

If so, you might find that creating a "Local Account" on your computer alleviates the problem. I have never logged into a computer using my Windows Account, preferring to install Windows with just a Local Account (I'm still using Windows 10).
https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-11/how-to-create-a-local-account-on-windows-11/

could i just swap the drives from one enclosure to another

In terms of functionality, you should be able to move the drives from one NAS to another, provided they both have the same standard SATA interface hardware. If the drive(s) fits in the new enclosure, there's a good chance you can get them to work.

As to whether your data will still be readable in a new NAS, that's an entirely different matter. Unless the old and new NAS are from the same manufacturer and they've retained the same file structure/OS/format type, you'll probably have to wipe the drives and reformat them using the menu in the new NAS.

Either way, you need to back up all data from the old NAS to a different drive or computer, before attempting to transfer the hard disks over between machines.

On a separate note, I successfully transferred eight 2TB SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) hard disks configured in TrueNAS Core RAID-Z2, between an HP server and a desktop PC with a SAS controller card. The only thing I needed to do after disk transfer was load a small configuration file into the new computer, then all the old data was visible on the new system.

That's the advantage oi software RAID. It can make life much easier. Of course I copied all the data to a different system before physically moving the drives, just in case.....

If your old NAS and new NAS use different hardware RAID controllers, or incompatible software RAID operating systems, that could make drive swaps whilst maintaining data impossible. That's why it's best to backup before experimenting.