I've been given a ReadyNas Pro 6 with 6x1Tb NAS drives in it. I have been considering using it as a home server, primarily to provide backup for the family across the network (Macs and PCs). I have not used one of these units before. If I am going to use it for backup then I will be totally reliant upon it and so I need to guard against any single point of failure. I imagine the biggest risk is the unit itself failing, since drive failures can be easily sorted out. So if I use flex-raid Raid 1 backup and the unit fails, I assume I can pull out a disk and mount it in a PC and get my data back that way, since I assume the drives are just some sort of open linux format. Is that right? If I'm wrong and the drive format is proprietary, then what do I do if the unit fails outside warranty? Thanks in advance for any help on this.

jolo2 wrote: So if I use flex-raid Raid 1 backup and the unit fails, I assume I can pull out a disk and mount it in a PC and get my data back that way, If you are running OS 4.2.x firmware, then the system is using software raid, with the ext file system on top of it. It's possible to convert your NAS to run OS 6 - in which case the file system is BTRFS. Converting to OS-6 would give you SMB 3 support - which is important, since Microsoft is deprecating SMB 1. Overall, I'd go with XRAID/RAID-5, and purchase a USB drive that you can use to back up the NAS. Generally people who are new to NAS underestimate the amount of storage they will need. XRAID/RAID-5 will give you 5 TB of space, three RAID-1 volumes would only give you 3 TB.

While it may be a bit daunting to somebody new to the ReadyNAS world, I also suggest you take a look at converting to OS6 before you get started (assuning the previous owner didn't already). Bumping the memory to at least 2GB is recommended when doing that. And it's important that you have the most current BIOS loaded beforehand. You can find threads about all those here in the forum. But the search function is really poor -- you'll have better luck with Google. Besides getting an up to date operating system (which supports SMB3), another big advantage this gives you is the ability to move the drives, with data intact, to a newer ReadyNAS. If you stick with 4.2.x, the data has to be offloaded and restored because of the different file systems. The most typical failure mechansim of the Pro6 (and really most NASes) is the power supply. It's not a design flaw, we just tend to keep NASes longer than PC's. There are suitable replacements available from sources other than Netgear. And a standard ATX12V supply can be used externally in a pinch (typically just for data recovery). You say you will use the NAS for "backup", but talk of it as if it's really "archive". Backup means you have another copy somewhere, be it on the machine backed up, a USB drive connected to the NAS, or another NAS. And backup is important. Besides hardware failures, other things can cause your array to become unreadable. if you read the forum, you could come to think it happens often. Not so. Just remember that most never come here until they have a problem.

Thanks for these really helpful replies. I have already updated to os6 and the system defaulted to X-raid/raid 5. A few questions arise. first, I’m uncomfortable with raid 5, so perhaps you can reassure me. If 1 drive dies then there’s a long resync process with a new drive during which time there’s no redundancy, so if a drive dies in that period, total data loss. That’s a scenario I want to make impossible. With raid 1 I should be able to pull, out a working drive that’s paired with a failed drive and copy the data off quickly. I’m thinking that’s a valuable feauture of raid 1? However, while I’m familiar with ext from Linux use years ago, I’m not familiar with BTRFS. Can a windows or Linux box be made to read BTRFS from one drive taken from a raid 1 pair? second, you talk about upgrading memory and - perhaps - having a spare power supply. I’d love to do those things. However from searches it seems the memory required is both legacy and very specific. Do you know precisely what sticks are required to upgrade the memory? That would help. Also, where could i source a replacement psu, which is also no doubt legacy at this point? also as regards hardware I saw that some people have upgraded to a quad processor. Is this worthwhile? as for backup, I would be grateful for more help on this. My thought was to create shares for each machine with each connected to windows backup or time machine as appropriate. If they are raid 1 volumes then I have duplicate backups. Why would I need a further backup on a usb drive? A related question: if I did run an x-raid / raid 5 then over time I would increase the capacity, so would I be able to get a backup usb drive that is as large as the entire array? hope these questions are clear. Thanks for great help.

The NAS drives are not in a format your PC can read directly, so your "pull it and read the data" plan is flawed in that regard. You can always go with RAID6, with two redundant drives. That still gives you more storage than 3 RAID1's and also keeps you from having to manaully balance the space between separate volumes. Memory is not as piicky as some would make you think. I've upgraded units with several brands of PC2-6400 SIMM (full size). It's only expensive if you choose to go to 8GB, as 4TB 1x8 DDR2 memory is rare (because 32-bit PC's of the day couldn't use more than 4GB and had at least two memory slots). I've bought GSKILL and OCZ CL4 from eBay and it worked fine. Just don't get the OCZ with the tall heat sink. Power supply is a standard SFX supply, but it does need three 4-pin Molex connectors and an extra long main 24-pin cable (usually obtained via a 6" extender). The original is a 300W, but does have more 12CV available (for the drives) than many 300W. I recommend you go with a 350 or 400W. I typically move the 90° Molex from the original supply to the new one, which makes for a cleaner install as well as letting me have 3 by replacing SATA connections with them. While the original Seasonic supply is no longer available, the SFX form factor was used in some small-profile PC's and is still readily available. Some have a fan offset from the center, whihc others have claimed was no issue. I've seen some that claim to be "SFX" but have the fan on the side with the AC power input and switch. that's not true SFX and won't work right. A quad processor is overkill and I know of nobody who did it and stuck with it. They generate too much heat and, unless you are willing to cut a hole in the side of your NAS, the heat sink isn't upgradable.. If you have the older Pro Business Edition or Pro Pioneer, then you have a Pentium E2160 @ 1.80GHz. That's pretty slow and upgrading to a Core2Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz is pretty easy (assuming that's in your skill set since you mentioned it) and they are cheap on eBay. It has the same TDP as the original. The (slightly) newer Pro6 has a Pentium E5300 @ 2.60GHz, and IMHO you don't get enough of a boost going to the Core2 to bother. You can check what processor you have in dmesg.log in the log .zip file you can download from the NAS. Note that I believe the latest BIOS is required for the E7500. You can go up to an E6600 with the older BIOS. . RAID is not backup. It provides continuous access through a drive failure, but anything taking out the NAS could also take out all the drives. You could use cloud backup if restoration time is not a concern. Of course, fire, flood, and theft aren't protected against with local backup, either. You could use a USB chassis that has built-in RAID for your backup if you are worried about growing the backup. Unfortunately, the Pro has only USB2, so it's pretty slow. You can actually go faster via Ethernet to a backup on a USB3 equipped PC. So if your storage and backup needs grow, you may want to get a faster NAS and relegate the Pro to backup duty.

jolo2 wrote: first, I’m uncomfortable with raid 5, so perhaps you can reassure me. If 1 drive dies then there’s a long resync process with a new drive during which time there’s no redundancy, so if a drive dies in that period, total data loss. That’s a scenario I want to make impossible. With raid 1 I should be able to pull, out a working drive that’s paired with a failed drive and copy the data off quickly. Either way, the main vulnerability is that if two drives fail you have total data loss. All things being equal, the resync period will be longer with RAID-5. But the resync won't be that long with 6x1TB drives. And there are other causes of loss - an electrical surge (nearby lightning strke) can take out all the drives (and the chassis) simultaneously for example. However, it is true that RAID-5 is less robust and that data recovery is harder. But I back up all the data on the NAS - so loss of a volume is just an inconvenience. I use XRAID since it is convenient to be able to expand the volume, and most of the time a disk failure is easily dealt with. jolo2 wrote: A related question: if I did run an x-raid / raid 5 then over time I would increase the capacity, so would I be able to get a backup usb drive that is as large as the entire array? It depends on how much you increase the capaciity. But you can get 10 TB USB backup drives (around $200). And you don't actually need each drive to back up the full array. Personally I do share by share backup. jolo2 wrote: If they are raid 1 volumes then I have duplicate backups. RAID isn't really a backup, and the mirrored disk won't always help you. For instance, if you accidentally delete some data, it immediately disappears from both disks. Or, the file system can be corrupted due to unexpected power loss or hardware issues in the chassis. There's also disaster recovery (lightning, flood, fire, theft, ...). You should consider that risk when as you sort out a backup plan. Personally I use Crashplan cloud backup for disaster recovery. jolo2 wrote: However from searches it seems the memory required is both legacy and very specific. Do you know precisely what sticks are required to upgrade the memory? That would help. Also, where could i source a replacement psu, which is also no doubt legacy at this point? I don't think the Pro is a fussy about memory as the NV+ v1. I upgraded mine with Patriot 2x4 GB RAM some years ago ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZG20C6/ ) but that is ridiculously priced now. But any DDR2 800 PC2 6400 RAM should work. As far as the CPU goes, I haven't upgraded mine. If you are simply using the NAS for backup, I wouldn't bother. It would be more beneficial if you were running apps (for instance plex). Sandshark is a good source of info on hardware upgrades.

ReadyNas Pro 6 - Unit Failure | NETGEAR Communities

29 Replies

StephenB
Guru
Apr 13, 2019
jolo2 wrote:

So if I use flex-raid Raid 1 backup and the unit fails, I assume I can pull out a disk and mount it in a PC and get my data back that way,

If you are running OS 4.2.x firmware, then the system is using software raid, with the ext file system on top of it.

It's possible to convert your NAS to run OS 6 - in which case the file system is BTRFS. Converting to OS-6 would give you SMB 3 support - which is important, since Microsoft is deprecating SMB 1.

Overall, I'd go with XRAID/RAID-5, and purchase a USB drive that you can use to back up the NAS. Generally people who are new to NAS underestimate the amount of storage they will need. XRAID/RAID-5 will give you 5 TB of space, three RAID-1 volumes would only give you 3 TB.
Sandshark
Sensei
Apr 13, 2019
While it may be a bit daunting to somebody new to the ReadyNAS world, I also suggest you take a look at converting to OS6 before you get started (assuning the previous owner didn't already). Bumping the memory to at least 2GB is recommended when doing that. And it's important that you have the most current BIOS loaded beforehand. You can find threads about all those here in the forum. But the search function is really poor -- you'll have better luck with Google. Besides getting an up to date operating system (which supports SMB3), another big advantage this gives you is the ability to move the drives, with data intact, to a newer ReadyNAS. If you stick with 4.2.x, the data has to be offloaded and restored because of the different file systems.

The most typical failure mechansim of the Pro6 (and really most NASes) is the power supply. It's not a design flaw, we just tend to keep NASes longer than PC's. There are suitable replacements available from sources other than Netgear. And a standard ATX12V supply can be used externally in a pinch (typically just for data recovery).

You say you will use the NAS for "backup", but talk of it as if it's really "archive". Backup means you have another copy somewhere, be it on the machine backed up, a USB drive connected to the NAS, or another NAS. And backup is important. Besides hardware failures, other things can cause your array to become unreadable. if you read the forum, you could come to think it happens often. Not so. Just remember that most never come here until they have a problem.
- jolo2
  Star
  Apr 13, 2019
  Thanks for these really helpful replies. I have already updated to os6 and the system defaulted to X-raid/raid 5. A few questions arise.
  
  first, I’m uncomfortable with raid 5, so perhaps you can reassure me. If 1 drive dies then there’s a long resync process with a new drive during which time there’s no redundancy, so if a drive dies in that period, total data loss. That’s a scenario I want to make impossible. With raid 1 I should be able to pull, out a working drive that’s paired with a failed drive and copy the data off quickly. I’m thinking that’s a valuable feauture of raid 1? However, while I’m familiar with ext from Linux use years ago, I’m not familiar with BTRFS. Can a windows or Linux box be made to read BTRFS from one drive taken from a raid 1 pair?
  
  second, you talk about upgrading memory and - perhaps - having a spare power supply. I’d love to do those things. However from searches it seems the memory required is both legacy and very specific. Do you know precisely what sticks are required to upgrade the memory? That would help. Also, where could i source a replacement psu, which is also no doubt legacy at this point?
  
  also as regards hardware I saw that some people have upgraded to a quad processor. Is this worthwhile?
  
  as for backup, I would be grateful for more help on this. My thought was to create shares for each machine with each connected to windows backup or time machine as appropriate. If they are raid 1 volumes then I have duplicate backups. Why would I need a further backup on a usb drive?
  
  A related question: if I did run an x-raid / raid 5 then over time I would increase the capacity, so would I be able to get a backup usb drive that is as large as the entire array?
  
  hope these questions are clear. Thanks for great help.
  - Sandshark
    Sensei
    Apr 13, 2019
    The NAS drives are not in a format your PC can read directly, so your "pull it and read the data" plan is flawed in that regard. You can always go with RAID6, with two redundant drives. That still gives you more storage than 3 RAID1's and also keeps you from having to manaully balance the space between separate volumes.
    
    Memory is not as piicky as some would make you think. I've upgraded units with several brands of PC2-6400 SIMM (full size). It's only expensive if you choose to go to 8GB, as 4TB 1x8 DDR2 memory is rare (because 32-bit PC's of the day couldn't use more than 4GB and had at least two memory slots). I've bought GSKILL and OCZ CL4 from eBay and it worked fine. Just don't get the OCZ with the tall heat sink.
    
    Power supply is a standard SFX supply, but it does need three 4-pin Molex connectors and an extra long main 24-pin cable (usually obtained via a 6" extender). The original is a 300W, but does have more 12CV available (for the drives) than many 300W. I recommend you go with a 350 or 400W. I typically move the 90° Molex from the original supply to the new one, which makes for a cleaner install as well as letting me have 3 by replacing SATA connections with them. While the original Seasonic supply is no longer available, the SFX form factor was used in some small-profile PC's and is still readily available. Some have a fan offset from the center, whihc others have claimed was no issue. I've seen some that claim to be "SFX" but have the fan on the side with the AC power input and switch. that's not true SFX and won't work right.
    
    A quad processor is overkill and I know of nobody who did it and stuck with it. They generate too much heat and, unless you are willing to cut a hole in the side of your NAS, the heat sink isn't upgradable.. If you have the older Pro Business Edition or Pro Pioneer, then you have a Pentium E2160 @ 1.80GHz. That's pretty slow and upgrading to a Core2Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz is pretty easy (assuming that's in your skill set since you mentioned it) and they are cheap on eBay. It has the same TDP as the original. The (slightly) newer Pro6 has a Pentium E5300 @ 2.60GHz, and IMHO you don't get enough of a boost going to the Core2 to bother. You can check what processor you have in dmesg.log in the log .zip file you can download from the NAS. Note that I believe the latest BIOS is required for the E7500. You can go up to an E6600 with the older BIOS. .
    
    RAID is not backup. It provides continuous access through a drive failure, but anything taking out the NAS could also take out all the drives. You could use cloud backup if restoration time is not a concern. Of course, fire, flood, and theft aren't protected against with local backup, either.
    
    You could use a USB chassis that has built-in RAID for your backup if you are worried about growing the backup. Unfortunately, the Pro has only USB2, so it's pretty slow. You can actually go faster via Ethernet to a backup on a USB3 equipped PC. So if your storage and backup needs grow, you may want to get a faster NAS and relegate the Pro to backup duty.