Migrating Your Data onto Unraid

Plan Before You Copy Anything

The move goes smoothly when you spend twenty minutes planning before you start dragging files. A little thought up front saves you from a tangled mess later.

Ask yourself three questions. Where do my files live right now? Where should they end up on Unraid? And what matters most, so I copy that first? Write the answers on a single sheet of paper. That sheet is your map for the whole job.

• Sources - every device and drive that holds files you care about.
• Destinations - which Unraid share each type of file belongs in.
• Order - the important, hard-to-replace files go first.
• Time - a rough sense of how long the big folders will take.

Taking Stock of Your Sources

Before you move anything, find every place your files are hiding. Most folks are surprised how many spots they have collected over the years.

Walk through the house and check drawers, closets, and the backs of desks. Plug in each drive and take a quick look. Add every source to your sheet before you start, so nothing gets left behind.

• Your main PC or laptop - the Documents, Pictures, and Downloads folders.
• External USB drives - the ones in a drawer you plug in once a year.
• An old NAS - a network storage box you may already have.
• Memory cards and thumb drives - from cameras, phones, and old backups.
• Cloud accounts - Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive.

Set Up Your Shares First

A share is just a top-level folder on Unraid, like a labeled drawer - Documents, Photos, Movies. Create these BEFORE you copy, so every file has a clear home to land in.

If you copy first and organize later, you end up with a giant pile you have to sort by hand. It is far easier to make the drawers first, then drop each thing into the right one as you go.

• Documents - papers, PDFs, spreadsheets, tax files.
• Photos - your pictures and scanned prints.
• Videos - home movies and recordings.
• Media - movies, TV, and music if you keep a collection.
• Backups - copies of computer backups.

The Safe Order to Copy In

Not all files are equal. Copy the things you could never get back first, while you are fresh and paying close attention. Save the easy-to-replace stuff for last.

The reason is simple. If something goes wrong or you get tired and make a mistake, you want it to happen with the least important files, not your only copy of the baby photos.

• First: irreplaceable personal files - family photos, home videos, important documents.
• Second: things that would be a pain to redo - scanned records, project files.
• Third: collections you could rebuild if you had to - movies, TV, music.
• Last: rough copies and duplicates you are not even sure you need.

Keep the Originals Until You've Verified

This is the heart of a safe migration. During the move you always have two copies: the original in its old home, and the new copy on Unraid. You never go down to one until you are sure.

It is tempting to delete files off a full laptop the moment they finish copying, just to free up space. Resist that urge. Space is cheap. Lost memories are not. Leave the originals alone until the whole verify step is done.

• A copy that stopped partway through without you noticing.
• A file that got corrupted in transit and will not open.
• Grabbing the wrong folder and missing some files entirely.
• A power blip or dropped network in the middle of a big transfer.

Copying Over the Network (SMB)

The everyday way to move files is over your home network, using a feature called SMB. It makes your Unraid shares show up as folders on your PC, so you can drag and drop like normal.

This is the most familiar method because it feels just like copying between two folders. It works well for most files. The one downside is speed - very large collections can take a long time over Wi-Fi.

• On a Windows PC, open File Explorer and type \\ followed by your server name in the address bar.
• On a Mac, use Finder's Go menu, then Connect to Server, and enter smb:// and your server name.
• Your Unraid shares appear as folders - Documents, Photos, and so on.
• Drag your files from the PC into the matching share, and let it copy.

Plugging a Drive Straight Into Unraid

For a big USB drive full of files, copying over the network can be slow. A faster path is to plug that drive directly into the Unraid server and copy locally, using a plugin called Unassigned Devices.

Unassigned Devices lets Unraid see a drive that is not part of the main array - like a USB drive you just plugged in. You can then copy from it to your shares at full speed, with no network in the middle.

• Install the Unassigned Devices plugin from Community Applications.
• Plug your USB drive into a port on the server.
• The drive shows up in the Unassigned Devices list, and you mount it.
• Copy from that drive into your shares - this is a job Bill can walk you through.

rsync and robocopy, in Plain Words

You may hear about tools with odd names - rsync and robocopy. You do not need them for a simple move, but it helps to know what they are, because they solve one real problem.

Both are smarter copying tools. Their big trick is that they can be stopped and started, and they will pick up where they left off instead of starting over. On a copy that takes two days, that is a lifesaver if the power blinks.

• robocopy is a copying tool built into Windows.
• rsync is a copying tool common on Unraid and Macs.
• Both can resume an interrupted copy and skip files they already copied.
• Both can double-check that each file arrived exactly as it left.

Verifying the Copy Really Worked

A finished progress bar is not proof. Before you trust the new copy, you check it three ways. This step is what separates a safe move from a scary one.

The spot-check is the most important. A file list can look complete while a file inside is broken. Actually opening several files, and seeing them look right, is the proof you are after.

• Count the files. The old folder and the new one should hold the same number of files.
• Compare the total size. The two folders should be very close to the same size.
• Spot-check real files. Open a handful - a few photos, a document, a video - on Unraid.

Large Transfers Take Time - Plan for It

Moving a few documents takes seconds. Moving a lifetime of photos and videos can take many hours, sometimes days. This is normal. Knowing it in advance keeps you calm.

How long it takes depends on how much data you have and how you are copying it. A big collection over Wi-Fi is the slowest. The same collection from a drive plugged straight into the server is much faster.

• Start the big copies in the evening and let them run overnight.
• Copy in batches - one folder or one drive at a time - so you can track progress.
• Do not put the computer to sleep mid-copy; set it to stay awake.
• Check on it now and then, but do not hover - it will finish when it finishes.

Don't Delete the Source Until Confirmed

This idea is so important it gets its own page. The original files stay put until the new copy is fully verified - counted, sized, and spot-checked with real files opened on Unraid.

Deleting too early is the single most common way people lose data during a move. The copy looked done, they freed up the old drive, and only weeks later did they discover half the files never made it or were corrupted. By then the original was gone.

• Confirm the file count matches on both sides.
• Confirm the total size matches on both sides.
• Open several real files on Unraid and confirm they are perfect.
• Wait a few days and use the files from Unraid before deleting anything.
• Only then, and unhurried, clear the originals.

Moving From an Old NAS

If you already have a network storage box - an old Synology, QNAP, or similar - moving its files to Unraid is a common and very doable job. Both are on your network, so they can talk to each other.

Either way, the same rules apply: recreate your shares on Unraid first, copy the important folders first, and leave the old NAS untouched until you have verified everything landed safely.

• Through a PC in the middle - open both boxes on your computer and copy from one to the other. Simple, but the files travel twice over the network.
• Directly between the two boxes - a more advanced method that copies straight across. Faster, and a good task to have Bill set up.

Bringing Files Down From the Cloud

Many folks have photos and documents scattered across Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, or OneDrive. You can bring copies of these down onto Unraid so everything lives in one place you own.

Some services also let you export everything at once through a takeout or export tool. That can be the easiest way to grab years of photos in one go, rather than folder by folder.

• Sign in to the cloud service on your computer.
• Download the folders you want - many services offer a Download All option.
• The files land on your PC, usually in the Downloads folder.
• Then copy them from your PC into the matching Unraid share.

Photos Into a Tool Like Immich

If your main goal is to get your phone photos off the cloud and onto your own server, there are apps made just for that. Immich is a popular one - it works like your own private photo library.

A tool like Immich runs on Unraid as an app and gives you a phone app and a web page to browse your pictures, much like the cloud photo services you are used to - but the photos live on your hardware, not a company's.

• Install the photo app from Community Applications, where most Unraid apps come from.
• It stores your photos in a share on your array.
• A companion phone app can upload new pictures automatically.
• You can also import your existing photo collection into it.

Keeping Your Folder Structure

The way you have your files organized now - by year, by event, by project - is worth keeping. A good copy brings the whole folder tree along, exactly as it was.

When you drag a top-level folder over, everything inside it comes too, in the same arrangement. That means you do not have to reorganize a thing. Your "2019 Vacation" folder stays a folder, with its photos still inside.

• Copy whole top-level folders, not loose files, so the structure comes along.
• Recreate your rough categories as shares - Photos, Documents, and so on.
• Resist the urge to reorganize during the move; do that later, calmly.
• Keep names as they are for now, so you can match old and new side by side.

Fixing Permissions After a Copy

Sometimes after a big copy, files land with the wrong permissions - the invisible tags that decide who is allowed to open or change them. The symptom is a file you can see but cannot open or edit.

This is a common and harmless hiccup, especially when copying from an old NAS or a different computer. Unraid has a built-in tool that resets permissions across your shares so everything behaves normally again.

• Look in the Tools area for a New Permissions option.
• Running it resets file permissions on the shares you choose.
• It is a routine fix - many people run it once after a big migration.
• If files open fine, you do not need it; it is only for when access acts up.

A Phased, Room-by-Room Plan

You do not have to move everything in one marathon weekend. The calmest way is in phases - a bit at a time, verifying as you go, until the whole house is on Unraid.

After each phase, do your full verify - count, size, spot-check - before moving to the next. This way, if you set it down for a week, you always know exactly where you left off.

• Phase 1: the main computer's Documents and Photos - your daily, precious files.
• Phase 2: the external USB drives, one at a time.
• Phase 3: the old NAS, if you have one.
• Phase 4: the cloud accounts.
• Phase 5: the big media collection - movies, TV, music.

Your Migration Checklist

Here is the whole safe process as a checklist. Work down it in order, and you will move your data without a single loss.

• List every source - PCs, USB drives, old NAS, cloud accounts.
• Create your shares on Unraid first, so files have a home.
• Decide the order - irreplaceable files before easy-to-replace ones.
• Copy, never move; leave every original in place.
• Start big transfers overnight; keep the computer awake.
• When each folder finishes, compare file count and total size.

What's in the 27-page PDF

• How to plan the move before you touch a single file
• Taking stock of every place your files live now
• Setting up your shares first, then copying in a safe order
• Copying over the network and by plugging a drive straight in
• Verifying the copy really worked - counts, sizes, spot-checks
• A calm, room-by-room plan and a final checklist

Why I wrote this

I write these as printable handouts because a guide you can keep in a drawer beats a web page you have to find again. No jargon, no judgment, no rushing. If you'd rather have someone sit beside you and go through it together, that's a flat $99 first visit with the 30-day follow-up included — serving Portage County from Atwater, Ohio. — Bill