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Moving a large NAS
Hey All,
I have a G-Rack12 NAS with about 15TB of data on it. I have all of the important files backed up to BackBlaze B2.
I need to move the NAS to another building a couple blocks away. It’s pretty cumbersome so I wanted to remove the hard drives for transportation. I was going to obviously power the machine down, label the drives and make sure they go back in the same slot when it get reassembled.
Is this considered an ok practice? Never had to move one of these that far before.
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3 Replies
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get a friend to help you. Leave the drives in the system. Power down the unit. TWO PEOPLE carry it into your car.
You drive to the next building. Your friend, who drove with you, helps you out with the heavy Super Micro chassis, and helps bring it into the new building, and get it into the rack. You are not doing this yourself. I work by myself all the time. I know what can, and cannot be done with just one person.Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
Done a fair number of these around London.
Backup first – sounds like you’re on top of that (check).
The surprising thing I didn’t account for on my first go – time of day. Overall it’s pretty obvious, but its so much more stressful if you do this at a busy time.
Also I hope you have the original boxes… you did keep these right? 🙂
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I’m guessing that you’ve already moved it but I figure that I’d chime in with my $0.02.
I’ve got to disagree with Bob. I’d never transport a NAS with the drives installed. The SATA/SAS connectors on the backplane aren’t meant to take a shock. A shock probably won’t break the connector completely off but it could weaken/crack the solder joint and cause weird failures down the road. (If NAS’s were meant to take a shock, the HDD’s would be mounted on rubber isolators and the SATA/SAS connector would be on a ribbon cable going to the backplane.)
I also transport my drives with the connector end facing down. That is the park position for the drive’s heads. Even if you hit some massive pothole, the heads aren’t going to move around, or worst case become unparked and smash in to the platters.
If you can, use a nice foam multiple hard drive shipping box. I keep a couple around from past HDD purchases but if you can’t find one, I’ve seen them on eBay. Yeah, you might have to remove the HDD caddies to get them in the box but it will be worth it.
– Current computer guy – Former Technical Director – Wannabe TV Broadcast Engineer –
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