Synology 2019 Configuration Guide Part 5: Move/ Copy files to your NAS

Now that you have some basic security settings on, let’s start moving some files.

But before we get started, if you are still thinking about which synology to buy, check this guide instead: Synology 2019 Buying Guide, but if you are the happy owner of a new Synology, here is a guide on how to configure your brand new Synology!!

Here is the list of upcoming and existing posts:

1. Part 1: Install DSM in your Synology (operating system)
2. Part 2: Configure your hard drives: Storage pool configuration
3. Part 3: Upgrade your Synology RAM
4. Part 4: Basic Security settings
5. Part 5: Move/copy files between NASes (this one)

Move files to your NAS

If you are the happy owner of a brand new NAS, you are probably dying to get started right?

So, first thing is to move your files to you NAS. Simply as it seems, how to do this depends on where your data is stored you can:

1. Move files between NASes
2. Move/Copy files from your computer to the NAS
3. Move/Copy files from a external drive to the NAS
4. Move Disks between NASes (migration)

1. Move files between NASes

You already saw this coming right? There are a gazillion ways to this too, here I will show you two:

1. Move files using a web browser
2. Cloud Station ShareSync: One/Two way sync for files and folders that change frequently in real time (hot storage)
3. Shared Folder Sync: One way sync for files and folders that do not change that often (cold storage).
4. Snapshot Replication: Snapshots of your folders on specific periods of time.
5. Mount a Drive (more effective/easier) to copy files

Out of all the ways described above, I found that mounting a drive is the fastest way to copy the files and is the only method I haven’t described yet.

Mount a Drive to copy files

This is the method I found was the fastest, but you need to have your NAS on the same Network for it to work.

I am going to copy my music library to the new NAS, so I can have a backup there and can listen to it too.

To get access to the music folder, you need to install Audio Station package. That will create the music folder. If you dont see it, go to “Shared Folders” on the “Control panel” and give yourself or your role access.

To move the music from the master(old NAS) to the slave (new NAS), we are going to mount the music folder from the master to the slave:

1. Folder Station
2. Pick the music folder
3. Tools
4. Mount Remote folder
5. and CIFS Shared folder

After that:

1. Add the address of your NAS. (if you dont know, go to Control panel >Network> Network Interface and you will find it under LAN
2. Account Name and Password of the user that has access to that folder on the remote server (the master)
3. Where you want you to mount the folder in the slave server. (It might ask you to create a new folder).

Once you have created the mounted folder, you can copy the contents (right -click >copy ((or move)) and paste it on the folder on the slave.

Once you are done, just unmount and you are done!

2. Move/Copy files from your computer to the NAS

To move or copy files from your computer to the NAS you can use the same commands as you have in windows (ctrl+c= copy, ctrl+v= paste), drag and drop between the windows, or upload. All of them are fast, although I have never copied massive amounts of files using this method, so I cant tell.
Let me know if you have done it and what is your experience in the comments.

3. Move/copy files from an external drive

Moving files from an external drive, requires you to connect to the drive and then you can USB copy to transfer the files.

I recently bought a LaCie Rugged 4TB external drive to backup all the videos when I am off-site and I will be testing this and creating a new post. When it is ready, I will link to it here.

Ok, lets do the last one:

4. Move disks between NASes (migration)

I am not moving disks between my NASes ans I want to add capacity as well as have an external backup option, so I can not exemplify, but Synology has a great guide on this here or their documentation:

Now that we have the files on the NAS, let’s go through on future posts, how to access them from within and outside your network.

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