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Forum Discussion
portalman
Sep 24, 2026Luminary
Announcing a new project
Hi folks, I'm working on a new readynas related project. Let me start by saying I love these things. I have a bunch of Pro6 and RN516 particularly, but I've worked on lots of different models. ...
portalman
Oct 12, 2026Luminary
Hi, sorry I've barely touched the project in 10 days or so due to illness. ZFS is my preference, but I guess there's nothing hard and fast about that. The data 'volume' is almost the easiest part of the whole thing.
I've tested ZFS on 4GB RAM in a Pro 6 and it runs great. You can shrink down the 'buffer' size as a start.
I've had similar unreliable boot experiences - i think partially suspect flash chips start behaving like that.
Sandshark
Oct 14, 2026Sensei
Yes, it's easy enough to change the volume type. But it's your GUI I'm wondering about, since it seems to be a little ZFS-specific. The problem is that a lot of units can't go above 2GB because the RAM is soldered in. All 300 and 400 series are in that group and the Pro/Ultra 4 and 2 might as well be since finding compatible RAM to go to 4GB is difficult. I've only seen a couple success stories and lots of failures.
I understand the preference for ZFS. I started looking at it when I started my project, but the RAM issue made me decide against it. I suspect it's one of the reasons Netgear went with BTRFS on MDADM, too.
I have a 312 all set for testing. It successfully boots GRML and has an HDMI port just in case I need it.
The Ultra 6 doesn't even POST -- no output on the VGA, so it's done. If nobody jumps in to volunteer testing with one, I'll be on the lookout for another. Maybe someone here is looking to upgrade an Ultra6 to a Pro6, 316 or 516, as I have more than one of each of those and would take an Ultra 6 in trade toward one of those just to have one for this kind of testing.
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