It is early days yet but 4TB disks are starting to trickle on to the market. I am aware so far of two different makes being launched they being Seagate and Hitachi. Hitachi at least have now made a kit available for an 'internal' 3.5" 4TB drive.While NetGear and also unlikely any ReadyNAS users have yet had a chance to test these, I was wondering if the Jedi or anyone else could comment as to whether in generic terms a ReadyNAS Pro running firmware 4.2.19 would in theory be able to support and use a set of 4TB drives? Please note I am not asking if the Seagate or Hitachi is supported I am asking if any hypothetical 4TB drive would work or are drive capacities now bigger than the ReadyNAS can cope with?In my own case I currently have officially supported 2TB Hitachi drives but they are getting full, I could obviously go to 3TB drives but my thought was to go straight to 4TB drives in a little while.

TeknoJnky has tested 4TB drives and they work.

They should work, but have not been through HCL testing yet, so no guarantees at this time.

If your interested in TeknoJnky's experience, here's his thread: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=58447&p=332905#p332905Note that drives pulled from a USB enclosure like TeknoJnky's won't be qualified. Only bare internal hard drives would be tested by NetGear.

Thanks people, I feel reassured that there is plenty of life left in my ReadyNAS and will start saving up for a set of six 4TB drives. Hopefully by then the prices will have fallen and NetGear will have certified them.

Good plan. Even though it appears 4TB drives probably already work fine in general, it's possible that particular drives may have compatibility issues that need to be addressed by a firmware update. So before you add 4TB drives (once they are approved) be sure to update to the latest production firmware available at that time.There are a couple of expansion issues to be aware of though:1. You cannot expand past 16TB. You must factory default with that capacity in place. So if you want a single-redundant volume with 6x4TB disks you'll need to backup your data and do a factory reset. A dual-redundant volume would come in under the 16TB limit2. Limit of 8TB for online expansion of 64-bit system (e.g. Pro) using EXT4 filesystem e.g. if original volume capacity after last factory default was 4TB you can't expand beyond 12TB online.

4TB hard disks | NETGEAR Communities

30 Replies

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 13, 2011
TeknoJnky has tested 4TB drives and they work.
chirpa
Luminary
Dec 13, 2011
They should work, but have not been through HCL testing yet, so no guarantees at this time.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 13, 2011
If your interested in TeknoJnky's experience, here's his thread: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=58447&p=332905#p332905

Note that drives pulled from a USB enclosure like TeknoJnky's won't be qualified. Only bare internal hard drives would be tested by NetGear.
jelockwood1
Guide
Dec 14, 2011
Thanks people, I feel reassured that there is plenty of life left in my ReadyNAS and will start saving up for a set of six 4TB drives. Hopefully by then the prices will have fallen and NetGear will have certified them.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 15, 2011
Good plan. Even though it appears 4TB drives probably already work fine in general, it's possible that particular drives may have compatibility issues that need to be addressed by a firmware update. So before you add 4TB drives (once they are approved) be sure to update to the latest production firmware available at that time.

There are a couple of expansion issues to be aware of though:
1. You cannot expand past 16TB. You must factory default with that capacity in place. So if you want a single-redundant volume with 6x4TB disks you'll need to backup your data and do a factory reset. A dual-redundant volume would come in under the 16TB limit
2. Limit of 8TB for online expansion of 64-bit system (e.g. Pro) using EXT4 filesystem e.g. if original volume capacity after last factory default was 4TB you can't expand beyond 12TB online.
croooowe
Aspirant
Jan 04, 2012
"1. You cannot expand past 16TB. You must factory default with that capacity in place. So if you want a single-redundant volume with 6x4TB disks you'll need to backup your data and do a factory reset. A dual-redundant volume would come in under the 16TB limit"

So if I'm currently running a ReadyNAS Ultra 6x2TB configured with dual redundancy (~7TB), in theory, could I swap out all those drives (1 at a time of course) with future certified 4TB drives and be all right?

Thanks!
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jan 04, 2012
Yes.
flano77
Aspirant
Jan 14, 2012
Just looking to buy an Ultra 4 but the doco says Max Cap is 8TB. But HCL for Ultra 4 shows 3TB drives supported. Is the 8TB Max an old spec or is overall Max Cap still only 8TB even if you use 4 x 3TB drives?
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jan 14, 2012
Old spec. 3TB drives are supported in RAIDiator 4.2.16 or later.
flano77
Aspirant
Jan 14, 2012
OK thanks for prompt reply too. So Max Cap is determined only by Max Drive size supported & obviously RAID used. No other overiding Max Cap? If so makes sense & great to hear. Thanks.