Moving disks to new machine

[naasking]

Is it possible to move a DSM volume to a new machine by moving over all of the disks? If so, what are the steps? For instance, does the new motherboard need the same number of SATA ports and I have to plug in the drives in the exact same slots on the new board?

[sbv3000]

If you have a new mobo I would do a 'test build' of XPE/DSM to the same version you are using, to make sure all the hardware on the new board works correctly.

 

If you have 'n'  sata ports and 'n' disks in your current raid you will need 'n' on the new board otherwise you will damage your array. 'n' on the new board could be made up of on-board and a compatible add on controller if the new mobo has less on-board connections -  understood?

 

Ideally it would be best to connect drives to the new board in the same order, however DSM is quite tolerant of moving disks around, its more critical that all disks are available in an array.

 

You should do a backup of critical data before any major hardware change.

[Polanskiman]

Below is an old tutorial but should also provide some further insight of what can be done:

As stated by sbv3000 always make a tests and have backups before proceeding with your hardware migration.