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Ken_R's avatar
Ken_R
Follower
Aug 10, 2020
Solved

Netgear RN31200-100NAS Hard Drive Upgrade

Dear Netgear Community,
 
 
I have an old Netgear RN31200-100NAS that currently has 1TB drives installed. I would like to upgrade the unit to a pair of 6TB drives. I found a historical document that listed compatible drives, but they are all obsolete. I would like to try a pair of WD Red NAS Hard Drive WD60EFAX - 6 TB - SATA 6Gb/s. Are these drives compatible with my unit? Also, the spec sheet shows a max capacity of 12TB. Is that each drive can be up to 12TB or the 2 must add to 12TB? I'd like to put the largest drives I can in the unit. I believe it is currently setup as a RAID1. Not sure of the firmware. We are using Windows10 on the PCs networked with the unit.
 
P.S. Being a novice I accidently posted this in a router thread. Please forgive the dual posting.
 
Thanks, Ken
  • StephenB's avatar
    StephenB
    Aug 10, 2020
    Ken_R wrote:
     
    Also, the spec sheet shows a max capacity of 12TB.
     

    That is because the largest compatible drives at the time the spec sheet was written was 6 TB.  There is no known upper limit on the drive size.  There are 16 TB drives on the the current HCL

     

    Ken_R wrote:
     
    I found a historical document that listed compatible drives, but they are all obsolete.

    https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-List is the current list

    Ken_R wrote:
     
    I would like to try a pair of WD Red NAS Hard Drive WD60EFAX - 6 TB - SATA 6Gb/s. Are these drives compatible with my unit?
     

    I don't recommend these particular models.  EFAX drives between 2 TB and 6 TB are SMB drives, which are not the best choice for RAID and btrfs.

     

    The older WD60EFRX is a better choice.  Or move up to the WD80EFAX - which is not SMB.  Ironwolf drives (any size) are also good options.

     

    BTW, several desktop drives (both Seagate and WD) have also switched to SMB.  So it is best to use NAS-purposed drives (other than the 2-6 TB EFAX models). 

1 Reply

  • StephenB's avatar
    StephenB
    Guru
    Aug 10, 2020
    Ken_R wrote:
     
    Also, the spec sheet shows a max capacity of 12TB.
     

    That is because the largest compatible drives at the time the spec sheet was written was 6 TB.  There is no known upper limit on the drive size.  There are 16 TB drives on the the current HCL

     

    Ken_R wrote:
     
    I found a historical document that listed compatible drives, but they are all obsolete.

    https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-List is the current list

    Ken_R wrote:
     
    I would like to try a pair of WD Red NAS Hard Drive WD60EFAX - 6 TB - SATA 6Gb/s. Are these drives compatible with my unit?
     

    I don't recommend these particular models.  EFAX drives between 2 TB and 6 TB are SMB drives, which are not the best choice for RAID and btrfs.

     

    The older WD60EFRX is a better choice.  Or move up to the WD80EFAX - which is not SMB.  Ironwolf drives (any size) are also good options.

     

    BTW, several desktop drives (both Seagate and WD) have also switched to SMB.  So it is best to use NAS-purposed drives (other than the 2-6 TB EFAX models). 

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