State of HCL for ReadyNAS NV?

I now have a renewed interest in the topic and was hoping someone could shed light on the issue. I am almost ready to put my new Pro6 into a production mode and retire my NV into a backup mode. I would really like to be able use the Seagate ST2000DL003 2TB drives I'm using in my Pro6 in my NV. It would minimize my support if I could keep the same model drives as the hot spares.

Is there any word on if this or any other new drive will be certified in the NV?

Thanks!

I have a few comments:

1. All Infrant ReadyNAS NV units would be long out of warranty by now.
2. The NV and NV+ v1 are very similar products, particularly the Rev B NV and the NV+ v1. What works in the NV+ v1 will most likely work in the NV as well.

NetGear wrote:

First of all, the NV+ is an evolutionary running production change over the original NV. In retrospect, the NV itself was already improving through running production changes, and a lot of features we are introducing formally in the NV+ hardware had already started appearing in the latest batches of the NV, starting in August/September timeframe. So pretty much other than the LCD panel, the hardware on the NV+ is very much the same as the "rev B" NVs that we have been shipping. That said, I will post the improvement in the NV+ since the original NV which was introduced back in February this year. Keep in mind that the RAIDiator firmware runs across commonly across the ReadyNAS family, so the software features remain the same. 1. LCD panel. Feedback on status and event information are now available immediately just by glancing at the NV+. By default, the IP address and disk usage of the NV+ is displayed, so there's no guessing what IP the ReadyNAS is set for and how much disk space is still available. Also status and events such as disk failure, disk removal and insertion events, USB device events, overtemp condition, etc are displayed as soon as it's triggered. This is in addition to the alerts and logging you've grown to be accustomed to with the ReadyNAS. In addition, boot statuses are now in readable form, so you no longer need to rely on a LED chart to see what's going on. The LCD panel will shut itself off after 5 minutes if there are no failure condition. This prolongs the life of the LCD and eliminates the unnecessary glow if the NV+ powered on at night. Also, it keeps the nice clean look you're accustomed to with the NV. 2. Quiet power supply. The original NV had a small high-revving fan in the power supply that helped out in cooling the PSU components, but, let's just say, also caused the NV to be louder than it could be. The NV+ now uses a fanless power supply with updated components that can withstand the higher temps. This results in the NV+ being noticeably quieter than the original NV. The "rev B" NV also utilizes the same NV+ power supply. We value our original NV users, and will be providing a retrokit power supply kit that will allow for the same quiet operation. 3. Improved fan circuitry. The mainboard now has a more robust threshold for handling the wider a ranges or fan RPM. The original NV fan safe range was ~1900-2100 RPM. The NV+ now utilizes a fan that can span speeds from 1600-3000 RPM, allowing for a slightly quieter setting at idle mode, and allowing the fan to spin up high enough for the hottest drives in warmer climates and air condition-less rooms. The "rev B" NV also utilizes the same mainboard with a different fan that ranges from 1600-2400 RPM. 4. More robust scheduled power-on. The NV+ mainboard now handles scheduled power-on events more gracefully when there is no power to the unit. Previously with the original NV, a power-on event when no AC was applied would result in needing to release the battery before the NV would boot again. The "rev B" NV utilizes the same board so it will also handle this condition identically to the NV+. 5. Retrospect for Windows and Macs. The NV+ comes bundled with a 5-user license for Retrospect for Windows and Mac users. We have a growing Mac user base (which we love), and partnering with EMC to bring a quality backup program for both Windows and Macs was definitely a high priority. Now more users have a choice on how to safeguard their data -- centralizing backups with our integrated FrontView Backup Manager or using Retrospect where FrontView Backup is not feasible.

3. Since your using the NV as a backup unit, worst case is you have a few drive failures or something like that and need to purchase new drives (or get replacements via RMA), do a factory reset and backup your data again. I wouldn't be overly worried.
4. The key thing with those drives is that I would do a factory reset after upgrading to 4.1.7 or later. Those disks are 4k sector disks.

Since they are on the HCL for the NV+, I would not know any reason they should not work fine in the NV. And as mdgm said, since it is long out of warranty, although still ticking (as the famous watch commercial used to say), any support you get would be here. Those drives do have a spotty reputation, hopefully now that they have been out a while, they have improved.

mdgm wrote:
I have a few comments: 1. All Infrant ReadyNAS NV units would be long out of warranty by now. 2. The NV and NV+ are very similar products, particularly the Rev B NV and the NV+. What works in the NV+ will most likely work in the NV as well.

Thanks for the input. I wouldn't have gotten this far, this fast without help.

I would really appreciate an official response from Netgear that states the HCL is frozen for the NV.

Does anyone know what the validation process is like? Does it require external hardware? Is it a diagnostic load to exercise the disks? If it is the latter, then maybe we could run our own HCL qualifications.

I think I'm going to take your post to heart and order five more Seagates and try them out...

PapaBear wrote:
Since they are on the HCL for the NV+, I would not know any reason they should not work fine in the NV. And as mdgm said, since it is long out of warranty, although still ticking (as the famous watch commercial used to say), any support you get would be here. Those drives do have a spotty reputation, hopefully now that they have been out a while, they have improved.

I am on the thread for that drive. I reported a problem too, but it went away when I checked the issue with Seatools.

Meanwhile my 5+ year old NV has Seagate 500GB HDDs and it has been running continuously w/o any problems. Go figure...