Copy 3TB of data from USB to Synology

Tech Support
1

I have 3 TB of files (docs, media, and everything in between) on a USB drive. What is the best way to copy the entire contents to a shared folder on the NAS? I thought the smart thing to do would be to connect the drive directly via the usb port, copy the files in File Station, and go to sleep. It copied about 1.5TB over night (according to Finder - there is no indication of progress or lack thereof in DSM). 3 days later and it’s at 1.8TB.

I have no confidence in the copy operation or integrity of the data if it completes. I don’t even know how to stop the transfer :joy:

Advice for a rookie Synology operator?

PS: The drive is formatted HFS+ :grimacing:

2

Word on the street is File Station is really slow. I never use it, so can’t say.

You could:
Open a shell on the NAS and cp the files.

If the drive is attached to another computer, preferably with wired Ethernet to the NAS, you could use FileZilla, which can use multiple threads. FZ speaks just about everything, so you could enable ftp on the NAS, mount an SMB, share, etc.

nb. Sunology’s SFTP sucks, but you can run openssh in a docker without too much trouble (assuming you can run dockers on your model NAS).

1 Like
3

Thanks for advice!

I am not in a huge hurry, I am more interested in reliable transfer. Bonus for low learning curve.

cp from the shell seems like a good way to go, yes? What do I do about the current transfer operation and wiping out whatever has transferred to start over?

Is there any special shell command I should use for copying all the folders and files?

Thanks so much.

4

A well known topic. You are now 1.8Tb in. Suggest keeping it running.

Connecting a drive to your computer and using fast ethernet is definitely the faster way to ingest data.

5

Yes, I’ve seen lots of posts like that, but still not clear on the solution. It’s moved 19GB in the last 36 hours. At that rate, it will take months to complete. I’d like to safely cancel and copy in pieces the Finder, but I’m not sure how to do that at this point.

6

Looking at some of the threads at the site @simonsmark posted, I’m now not sure a different command will help.

This post is interesting, connect the drive then start or restart the nas seemed to help this person.

Or, attach the drive to your Mac and copy the files over your network.

Synology USB drive support seems to have long standing bugs that haven’t been addressed.

7

@JohnAtl and @simonsmark - Thanks again for the help.

I ejected the USB drive, deleted the contents of the folder that had partially transferred to the NAS and emptied its recycle bin (took about 15 minutes). Next, using Finder 1) I copied the entire contents of the USB drive (6 folders) to a Mac 2) I copied one of the folders from the Mac to the shared folder on the NAS.

So far it has copied 290GB in 3 hours. Thankfully, I can see that easily with the standard Finder progress window.

I’ll report back on how it goes.

1 Like