BlackArmor NAS Network Storage Server

[mysmartsim]

Hi,

I'm receiving a new BlackArmor 440 shortly because my current one is giving me problems. The drives in the current one are all great and working perfectly, so is it as simple as just removing the drives from our current unit and installing them in the new unit when it arrives?  The reason I'm asking is because I'm afraid that once I put my drives in the new unit it'll automatically try to format them or something.  Before I move the drives, should I first configure the new 440 to match the old one?  I'm thinking if I do that then the RAID will already be configured and the BA won't have to touch the drives once I insert them.  Please let me know your thoughts, as I'm hoping to be able to attempt this later today or tomorrow.

Thank you,

Dave

[RAsg · Accepted solution]

I was told that if the BA NAS was running the latest firmware and then you put those drives in to a new NAS the data should be accessible. I haven't tested it myself. I suggest that you keep the drives in the same order when inserting them into the new NAS. Most important I hope you have previously done a NAS to USB Backup or have your data safe somewhere else just in case.

[mysmartsim]

I forgot to update this thread back when we resolved the issue, but, RAsg, you were right -- I just moved them from one to another and it worked without a hitch.  I was afraid that the BlackArmor stored it's configuration data on some internal mechanism, but since it stores it directory on the hard disk(s), it worked no problem.

Thank you for the help!

P.S. We did have a backup of the data, but not via the NAS to USB feature. The NAS to USB (and USB to NAS) backup features are absolutely useless for any decent amount of data.  Backing up our ~1TB of data ran for several days and wasn't even close to done; it was saying there was another 200+ hours remaining.

[Blang]

@mysmartsim

I posted a similar question a while back with no response so I'm glad you posted an update to confirm this.

So just to confirm, you have a 4 drive RAID in your original BlackArmor 440. When you got the replacement BlackArmor 440, you put the drives in the same order into the new NAS and started it up. The array remained configured, all data still existed, and all configurations were the same as if it was the original NAS unit? And you didn't need to do anything to the new NAS unit before transferring the drives?

Thanks in advance for the reply!