Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM working good so far

I keep wigging out weekly when I see an E-mail come in like "RAID event detected. (YourNAS)", but it's just the weekly scrub & integrity checks I have scheduled (always clean). No problems at all so far.

Haven't seen the HD's pass 105 or so & temp1 over 140. Safe is a little warm when I open it, but not anywhere close to hot at all.

Just saw they are going for $90 at NewEgg today with a coupon. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1557278 I got mine for about $95.

I just purchased an Ultra 4 from Provantage and more Samsung F4 drives from NewEgg; eight in all. I just couldn't resist that low price either. I've been running two of the F4 drives as a hardware RAID1 arrays in a new PC and have been pleased with how cool and noise free they are. I plan to create a second software RAID1 array within OSX (its a dual boot Win7 x64/Hackintosh machine) and then load the remainder into the ReadyNAS for backing everything up. So glad to hear that you are having good luck with your drives. The 3-yr warranty and my past bad experience with a Samsung DLP TV made me think long and hard before going with their drives, but the reviews seem favorable and using them in RAID relieves most of my data loss worries should they die prematurely. It does make me nervous that they are not on Netgear's compatibility list. I don't see them listing drives that failed compatibility and/or are waiting to be tested, so it makes me wonder which category these fall into.

Just upgraded the two Spinpoint F3 HD103UI to two Spinpoint FD HD204UI in my ReadyNas Duo. Everything went as expected and the volume is now expanded.

I upgraded the Firmware to RAIDiator 4.1.7-T60 first, then unplugged the first disk and replaced it with the new 2TB disk. Initialization and resynch too just over 14 hours. I then did the same with the second disk and this took the same length of time.

Once the Volume was reported as Redundant, I rebooted the NAS from Frontview. Once it had started up again, it asked me to reboot to complete the Expansion. I rebooted a second time and just eight minutes later, the volume had been successfully expanded to 1859GB. :thumbsup:

Your disks are 4k sector disks so you should have backed up all data, verified backup is good, update to 4.1.7 T48 or later (already done this so need to do it again), done a System > Config Backup, factory default (http://www.readynas.com/forum/faq.php#How_do_I_reset_the_ReadyNAS_to_factory_default%3F), restore Config Backup, restore data from backup.

Without alignment for 4k sectors you may have poor write performance.

Thanks mdgm. I'll do that this weekend. I should have read all of the release notes first.

Yes, reading the release notes is important.

When I said to factory default, I forgot to mention to do that with the new disks (i.e. the HD204UI) in place (but that is obvious from reading the release notes).

Hello mdgm

I've just read the posts above and the instructions that you'd given. Where are those instructions accessed from? For my future reference. Where are the release notes that you've instructed on. I'm in the process of upgrading hard drives etc. , so just doing the research bit. How do you know those Samsungs are 4 sector disks? I just need a bit of guidance here.

I've just gone back to the HCL and there's nothing there about these disks. Where would I find such info?

thanks

The Public Beta forum has a thread with the release notes for the beta. The Announcements forum contains links to the release notes for production firmware.

As for your Samsung being 4k sector, you can see that from the drive specifications released by the manufacturer. See http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?type=94&subtype=98&model_cd=552

Thanks mdgm

Have been away from the forum and not staying on top of the ReadyNas latest info etc.. Sometimes we need a helping hand, memory jog and a push in the right direction. Thanks

Is it me, or this hard drive upgrade business hard at the minute. Is it because the technologies on the cusp of changing? Like I said, I've not really kept up to date, but I'm assuming all new hard drives will be going this way with the 4k sectors and so the Duo is old technology trying to keep up? Is that about right? Or I've read into wrong?

In other words, are the hard drives going to be this 4K sector from now on, and I'd better refresh myself with some tech to keep up to speed?

Are there any new large hard drives out there that don't need this juggling of 4K sector stuff?

Anyone?

Many thanks to mdgm. I have now just copied all my data back onto the NAS. The partition logs now show that the disks are aligned for the 4k sectors and performance is as it should be.