NAS Data Transfer Manual

NAS Data Transfer Manual

NOTE: The fastest data transfer speeds can be achieved by working with your IT department and connecting the NAS directly to your network backbone. If this is something you would like to do, please contact the AIC (aic@janelia.hhmi.org) to work out the details with your local IT department.

Most AIC visitors generate many terabytes of image data during their stay. We’ve found that the fast way to transfer this data back to their home institutions is to physically ship a network attached storage (NAS) device. We have several NAS units at the AIC that can be used to transfer data sets. The instructions below describe how you can migrate the data to your institution’s local storage once a NAS unit has arrived.

Setting up the NAS and Accessing your Data #

  1. Install the unit in a safe location. Plug in the included power cable and network cable (Figure 1). The network connection of the NAS unit is capable of up to 10 Gb/s transfer speed.

    Figure 1: Rear view of NAS

  2. Confirm the individual driver status lights are green and that the front power light is blue (Figure 2).

    Figure 2: Front view of NAS

  3. Open a browser window (Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or Safari) and type find.synology.com into the browser address bar. You will see the searching window as it looks for the for the network-attached NAS (Figure 3).

    Figure 3: Searching window

  4. Once it finds the NAS, it will show the name, MAC address, and IP address of the unit (Figure 4).

    Figure 4: NAS unit details window

If you click on “Connect”, you can only view the contents of the unit. This will NOT let you copy data off the NAS. At this point, make note of the IP address of the unit and proceed to the next steps. If you accidentally click “Connect”, close your browser window and go back to Step 3.

  1. Connect to the NAS:

    • (Windows 10) Open a File Explorer window. Right click on “This PC,”, then in the pop-up menu, click on “Map Network Drive…” (Figure 5).

      Figure 5: Mapping a network drive (Windows)

    In the dialogue box that opens, select a drive letter you want to assign to the NAS, then type in the IP address you found in STEP 2 followed by \aicData (Figure 6), it should look like [IP ADDRESS]\aicData. Click “Finish”. the next window will ask for login credentials. Use the user name and password as shown at the top of this document and then a window will open showing all the data on the NAS. Now you can treat the NAS as any other network storage location and can copy the data from there to a location of your choosing.

    Figure 6: Network drive details

    • (OS X) Open a Connection window by navigating to the “Go” men, then click “Connect to server” alternatively, the keyboard shortcut is command + K. In the dialogue that opens, type smb://[IP ADDRESS]/aicData (Figure 7), then click on the “Connect” button. This will mount the aicData and allow you to treat it like any other connected drive.

      Figure 7: Server connect (OS X)

  2. Once you have connected to the NAS, copy the data off the unit.

  3. To shut down the NAS, press and hold the power button (Figure 2) until you hear an audible beep. Release the power button. The power button and driver indicator lights will blink for ~30 seconds and then the unit will turn off. Unplug all cables, package it exactly as it was delivered and contact AIC (aic@janelia.hhmi.org) to set up the return shipment.


Last modified Jul 15, 2020