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Forum Discussion
DJOROD
Jan 30, 2019Aspirant
Maximum Storage by Disk and Total Unit Capacity
Hi,
I am a proud owner of a RNDU4000 (ReadyNAS Ultra 4 [X-RAID2]) that I've been using, going on 10 years now. I'm currently running RAIDar Utility Version 6.4.0 and Firmware/RAIDiator 4.2.31 w...
StephenB
Jan 30, 2019Guru - Experienced User
There are two expansion limits in the 4.2 firmware
- a volume can't expand over 16 TiB
- a volume can't expand more than 8 TiB from it's initial size.
So in the case of a 4-bay ultra, the first limit means that you can expand to 4x4 TB (12 TB volume) or even 4x5TB (15 TB volume). 4x6TB exceeds the 16 TiB ceiling, but 3x6TB+4TB would work.
The second limit might also apply, and if it does you'll need to do a factory reset with all disks in place.
You can convert your NAS to run OS 6 - which doesn't have these expansion limits. That process isn't supported by Netgear, but many have done it. It does require a factory reset, but you are facing that possibility already. In addition to eliminating the expansion limits, you'd also get new features - including support for SMB 3.0, which is helpful since Microsoft is deprecating the SMB 1.0 protocol that your ultra uses.
DJOROD
Jan 30, 2019Aspirant
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks for your prompt reply on this. Converting my NAS to run OS 6 sounds very enticing but I fear that in doing so, this procedure could also "brick" the appliance. Would I be at risk of this?
- StephenBJan 30, 2019Guru - Experienced User
DJOROD wrote:
Converting my NAS to run OS 6 sounds very enticing but I fear that in doing so, this procedure could also "brick" the appliance. Would I be at risk of this?
I haven't seen any posts from Ultra owners reporting a bricked NAS when doing the conversion. There are a couple of OS 4.2.x NAS models that use 32 bit processors, and they can be bricked - but the Ultra is a 64 bit platform.
There are also a couple of folks who found that the upgrade resulted in the NAS no longer knowing it's serial number. That creates issues connecting to ReadyCloud. Netgear mods here (for example JohnCM_S ) have solved that problem for a couple of folks.
As I said, it is not supported by Netgear - and you won't be able to get paid Netgear support if you switch. But overall, people doing this conversion have reported success.
- DJORODJan 30, 2019Aspirant
Excellent!!! Thank you so much for you all of your help and input. I'll add this to my "To-Do" list =)
Very much appreciated!!!
- SandsharkJan 31, 2019Sensei - Experienced User
You may also want to upgrade to at least 2GB of RAM for OS6. All OS6 based platforms save the very earliest ARM based ones have at least 2GB.
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