Thinking a Duo for backup duties?

If you updated the RAM years ago it should be fine for your old unit.

More recently RAM manufacturers have released new versions of modules that are incompatible but kept the same module number. So NetGear unfortunately had to end support for 3rd party memory.

mdgm,
Yes, I have followed the 'ram issues' for a long time. I still recall all the sweat I shed doing my 'now' old Duo.
So happy was I when it fired back up and reported its' new HCL-approved fiddle space. :D
Never opened the box ever again! I did promote it to its' own UPS though. Good thing, too!
I understand and accept the Netgear position. Fair. So much has changed in the past 3 years. I am OK with the
current limitation(s). The forum is my teacher.

The newer boxes can still handle the additional RAM, there's just no official HCL anymore.
Worst that can happen (if you not force a mechanically incompatible RAM module into the slot with bare force) is the ReadyNAS not booting.
In that case simply revert to the shipped RAM module and you're fine.
I had no problems with upgrading the RAM about 6 months ago.

Mastacheata wrote:
Worst that can happen (if you not force a mechanically incompatible RAM module into the slot with bare force) is the ReadyNAS not booting. In that case simply revert to the shipped RAM module and you're fine.

Actually the worst that can happen is the system boots, everything looks normal, and 6 months down the line, you find corrupted files. :shock:

Has that really happened? I thought since this is the only main memory of the NAS box this kind of errors should show up pretty quickly.
Especially if you follow the guidelines that were set up during the time where this was officially tolerated (I think it wasn't really supported officially at any point).
These guidelines said you should run a full memory test after installing the RAM.

While theoretically corrupted files might still happen it's way more likely to fail in some of the operating system's low-level processes.

At least on the computers with defunct and/or incompatible RAM I've seen in the past 10 years since I work with computers, memtest has always shown errors and the operating system itself failed way before any critical damage was done to my systems.

Yes, we've had issues where the replacement memory would pass the memtest (memtest can be 85% effective) but either causing an eventual null-pointer system crash or data corruption. Certainly not all cases, but enough so that we can no longer recommend replacing memory.

Okee, well mine is doing well and I'll never again say that it was secure to replace it.