I am considering upgrading my NAS computer hardware. I have a pretty simple SSD boot drive with 2 4TB hard drive setup, and am wondering how best to move these over to a new motherboard and cpu setup. I assume that just swapping the physical hardware over would cause some kind of issue, but I haven’t been able to find a good answer online. I know I could wipe the SSD and reinstall with the backup config, but if there’s an easier way I’d like to do it. Sorry if it seems like a dumb question, and thanks for any help!
First, save your config file. Then, unplug them from the old system, plug them into the new system, and boot. If the new system has different network interface names (perhaps due to different interface hardware/drivers), and you manually configured your network, you may need to reconfigure it. That’s it.
That seems…way too easy haha. Is this a linux thing? I feel like windows would have a fit.
No, this even works on Windows most of the time.
There are two things that make it at least potentially different on Windows:
- Activation–if you move to new hardware, Windows won’t be activated any more and will nag you. This obviously doesn’t apply to free OSs.
- Drivers. Linux and FreeBSD both include the vast majority of drivers you’re likely to need, while Windows does (or did) not. Thus, moving to new hardware with Windows likely means installing lots of drivers for the different hardware. I expect, in recent years, this is pretty straightforward and happens automatically over the Internet, so it isn’t as disruptive as it once was.
Just to be clear, does this backup app settings as well? Everything?