A sad tale of ProSupport woe with ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer!

So to update and possible close this thread.

Finally received new Pro 6 unit and drives, backup jobs to move shares and contents, confirmed file counts and sizes, shipped old unit off, and registered new unit 6/6/2012.

Results of torture testing in lab:

The out of memory condition has been reproduced on the unit, although the unit itself has not yet completely locked up. Regardless, a developer is looking into the out of memory condition to see where it is coming from.

It appears the method the software uses to read and write data via CIFS was causing a large amount of files’ extended attributes to be read and re-read very quickly, each attempt of which in turn attempts to allocate large amounts of physically contiguous memory for the operation. We’ve implemented a change when this type of behavior occurs that will fall back to a virtual memory allocation system that should be better for this type of operation. It should be noted that the Pro system I have in the lab has been throwing these allocation errors without hanging during my tests. While I do think that this is the source of the original issue, it is possible that the hangs are due to something else. I will be testing the code that has this change in it to verify that the allocation errors stop and that the unit remains stable.

It looks like everything was OK after a little more than a week of heavy CIFS load, part of which came from backup software. I believe that the change made in the firmware to allow for backup software's specific type of access pattern will be implemented in our next firmware release.

So the new unit got the mentioned firmware a while back and I re-pointed the backup software at it and no issues on the ReadyNAS side since. For my existing advanced support contract they issued a new one, but that is another fight since:
1. They originally said they could not transfer
2. So I asked for new
3. Then they could transfer but not extend the term
4. So finally I made a big enough stink that they decided to issue new contact

But in the f*cking around in trying to transfer the old my warranty has components expired in the future.

Standard Product Warranty:
 - 	Hardware Warranty:                       Available till 29/May/2017
 - 	Free Installation Support Warranty:      Expired on 28/Aug/2012
 - 	Power Supply Warranty:                   Expired on 29/May/2017
 - 	Accessories Warranty:                    Expired on 29/May/2017
 
Advanced Support / Hardware Contracts:
   	OnCall 24x7 3 Yrs, Phone+NBD Replacement, Cat. 2 - Available till 30/May/2015

So in summation, if you can reach the right people in the right places and you are not willing to let yourself be mistreated, mountains can be moved.

Just ask yourself before you buy, should that be the way it is or should you be treated better?