How to Migrate Off Local Storage ADS


Using a virtual disk as your Alike Data Store (ADS) is fully supported by your A2 and is a fast and convenient way to deploy a lightweight A2 environment for a proof-of-concept, or in some cases, to meet specialized BDR needs.

However, in the case of many emergency scenarios, this deployment style puts you at risk. Use of virtual local storage for your ADS is not a best-practice! That's because in many emergency scenarios, your hypervisors may be compromised. With your hypervisors down, you will have no way to access your ADS storage.

The best-practice for most A2 deployments is to use a NAS for your ADS storage. NAS, if configured correctly, can provide secure, redundant storage that is largely isolated from your production hypervisors and their storage systems. Should your hypervisors go down, you can easily spin up a new, temporary hypervisor, deploy the A2, reconnect it to your NAS ADS, and recover essential systems.

If you are currently running your ADS on a virtual disk, we recommend immediately migrating off of it. Here's how:

  1. Create an NFS share on your NAS with a MINIMUM of several TB of storage available. Plan ahead and make sure to have enough storage capacity for your organizational growth!
  2. Log into your A2 via SCP (e.g. winSCP)
  3. Navigate to /mnt/ads
  4. Copy the entire contents from here to your new NAS storage environment. This may take a while!
  5. Consult this document for details on configuring NFS for your A2: https://docs.quadricsoftware.com/kb/guides/configuring-nfs-storage-for-alike/
  6. Cut over your A2 to your new NFS storage!


Please be aware we don't recommend the following configurations, and none are best practices:

  • NFS to Windows servers
  • Using a Windows machine, virtual or otherwise, as your ADS
  • Using any VM to host your CIFS or NFS ADS