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RN214 vs RN314 Questions
Greetings.
I have an old (in computer years) ReadyNas Duo and am looking to upgrade to something with greater storage capacity. At present, I am considering the RN214 and RN314. To that end, I have some questions, the answers for which I would be extremely grateful:
1) Is the RN314 still available? Most sites are either sold out or list it as discontinued.
2) Are there lists of recommended drives for these NAS'? Or, will any SATA drive work? (I am considering WD Red or Red Pro)
3) Can I operate initially with only 2 drives in RAID 1 and add more drives, and maybe change the RAID configuration later?
4) Netgear literature lists the RN214 maximum capacity differently depending on which literature I examine. Is the maximum 24TB or 32TB?
5) Can I configure and operate these units without using ReadyCloud? I really don't want it to have any outside network exposure. Also, do these units have a "frontview" type interface?
6) To utilize link aggregation, does my switch (GS116) need to support it as well, and does my router need to support it, and does my PC need to support it ... ?
7) Is there a version of RAIDar that doesn't require JAVA installation?
8) Are there any reasons not to start out with two 8TB drives?
thanks
Keith
kmmcd wrote:
e) is it better to just plug the two new WD Red 6TB drives into the RN424, format them, create shares, etc., and then copy the old data from the Duo across the network to the new RN424 drives?
Yes. That also allows you to use the Duo for backup.
Note that once the data is migrated, you can do a factory reset on the duo - changing it to flexraid, and creating two RAID-0 volumes (one for each disk). That gives you 4 TB of backup (though it isn't protected from drive failure). I've done this with my own duo.
Using two volumes in the Duo does require you to manual balance storage (choosing which shares to place on which volume). But a single RAID-0 volume will completely fail if either disk fails. I've found balancing the storage isn't that difficult, and it's a lot more robust.
18 Replies
1) The new model is the RN424. The RN420 series has 2-bay, 4-bay, 6-bay and 8-bay models, namely the RN422, RN424, RN426 and RN428 respectively.
2) Those two are good choices. Not all disks are compatible and some disks are more suited to different use cases than others. We do have a compatibility list3) Using the default X-RAID with two disks it would use RAID-1 then change to RAID-5 when you add a 3rd disk.
4) Over time higher capacity disks have been released. Resellers tend not to update their pages with new datasheets. There are 10TB disks on the compatibility list so it should support a 40TB volume. Though that's before redundancy. Using RAID-5 with 4x10TB disks you'd get a volume capacity of about 27TiB.
5) ReadyCLOUD is optional. You don't have to use it. Some users use their NAS units on networks not connected to the internet. You can install the RAIDar discovery client on your Mac/PC but that's optional too. Your router should show the NAS in attached devices so you can find the I.P. by finding which I.P. has been assigned to the MAC address of a NIC in your NAS.
6) To use some modes such as LACP the switch/router your NAS is directly plugged into needs to support it and be configured to use it.
7) No.
8) Starting off with two 8TB disks should be fine.
If your data is important to you and the NAS will be holding the primary copy of it you should factor into your budget how you'll backup your important data whether to the Duo or to another NAS or to a USB disk or some place else.
kmmcd wrote:
6) To utilize link aggregation, does my switch (GS116) need to support it as well, and does my router need to support it, and does my PC need to support
Note that your GS116 doesn't support LACP, you'd need a managed switch for that.
Perhaps more importantly, link aggregation is only useful if you have a lot of users. Each user is still limited by their single 1 gbps link anyway. With LACP, if you have two users there's a 50-50 chance they will be sharing the same link to the NAS, so there's only a 50-50 chance of seeing any performance gain at all. For most home users, it's not worth the trouble.
You'll see a huge performance boost with either an RN214 or an RN424 over your Duo v1, even w/o link aggregation.
Thanks all for the quick responses. I think that I've settled on the RN424. On my existing ReadyNAS (Duo), I have only manually backed it up; on the new NAS, I plan to avail myself of its automated backup capabilities. To that end, I have some questions:
1) I don't think that it will be practical to backup the entire NAS to a single connected USB3 drive. Does the NAS backup utility provide the ability to automatically backup only select folders from the NAS?
2) To migrate my data from the old NAS to the new one, is it possible to:
a) remove one of the two 2TB drives from the Dua and plug it into the RN424
b) plug the 2TB drive into the RN424
c) plug one new drive (e.g. WD Red 6TB) into the RN424 and watch it perform an automatic cross-copy?
d) remove the 2TB drive from the RN424 and insert the second WD Red 6TB into the RN424 and watch it again perform a cross-copy, or
e) is it better to just plug the two new WD Red 6TB drives into the RN424, format them, create shares, etc., and then copy the old data from the Duo across the network to the new RN424 drives?
E.
Note, if you planned to use the 2tb drives in the new nas, you will have to start with at least one 2tb drive.
If you start with bigger drives, you cannot add smaller drives afterwards.
I would recommend you simply leave your duo intact, setup your new device however you like, then use rsync to copy your data (do one share at a time) from the duo to the new one.
it is a bit time consuming, but that to me is the safest and most reliable method.
Once all data is up and running on your new device, you can reverse your backup jobs so that they pull from your new device over to the duo (424 primary, duo secondary/backup).
at some point, you will probably run out of space on the duo, you could either backup to a usb drive (probably fastest if connected to the 424), or you could reset the duo and setup 2 separate 2tb volumes. You would have double the space, but no redundancy for your backups.
The RN424 is on order. Now, on to drives. I will initially be populating the RN424 with two drives. Which is best? WD60EFRX (track record of several years), or larger, more expensive WD80EFRX (newer technology such as helium, larger cache, physically lighter and more quiet idle speed)?
I went with four WD60EFRX in my RN526x, and three WD80EFZX in the RN524x.
Part of my reasoning was to keep at least one free spot in each NAS for expansion later. I had two WD60EFRX already on hand, so that was another part of it.
Either disk is reasonable for you, since you will have two free slots either way.
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