I have decided to replace my current NAS, a MyCloud Mirror Gen 2, because it is simply unable to maintain a safe temperature level. I am currently looking a several options:
WD MyCloud PR2100
Asustor Lockerstor 2
QNAP TS-251
Synology DS720+
I’m not concerned about which is the best replacement. Indeed, I’d prefer the WD but others have to be considered. That is for another thread.
What I’m really concerned about is how portable my files are. I have heard that HDDs used in a WD NAS are encoded and other drives won’t read them. For the record, I have not used the optional encryption in my current NAS so they can still be read as a network drive by all the machines on my network.
So the question is this: if I have not encrypted my data in my existing WD enclosure, is it still possible to transfer it to another enclosure, like a QNAP, without having to do a dot-and-carry-one operation, passing files across a third drive? Or can it just be read normally?
As in read them like any other drive. No need for a password. I can access the webpage for the MyCloud through my browser, though I still need to login there. But on my Windows and Mac machines, I access them as I would access any other file or directory through Windows Explorer or Finder.
No, nobody has made that promise. WD did tell me that my drives would work normally in a new WD enclosure but I know I would have to follow a procedure to get it to work. Sounds like I would have to do a folder by folder transfer.
No, that’s one of the reasons this came up. I was going to upgrade the firmware but I thought I should back up what I had. Then I got home one night to find a red light on the front panel. Fortunately, it’s set up in RAID 1.0.
Okay, I think I’ve figured it out. The file system is ext2/3/4 so I need something to enable my Windows machine to read it. There are apps out there which can read a Linux file system. Then it’s a matter of transferring it across (this assuming I don’t buy a WD unit). Thanks for your help.
if you want to copy data from one NAS to another, best best is hard wired Ethernet and it should be fairly simply using drag and drop assuming no fancy software stacks
In principle, you can substitute the WD data drives into a new MyCloud box but in practice it might be iffy. You can not swap the drives into a different manufacturers box as the first step in setting up the new box is to format the drives.
Your best bet is to buy new drives with the new box and copy the contents over.
