Upgrade , fix, or replace readynas nv?

deploylinux wrote:
I purchased a readynas nv with 4 x 750GB drives in september of 2006 (I think the amazon order was for ~$3K). Overall, I've been impressed with open community built upon the readynas, the general design/capabilities of it, and that software upgrades have been continually provided at no cost -- even if several new features of newer units haven't been back ported.

Good to hear your experience.

deploylinux wrote:
I'm honestly not sure how much of the preceeding will continue now that infrant has been purchased by netgear...but netgear does seem to be heavily marketing the readynas and perhaps that means there is still a reasonable future.

The ReadyNAS line is here to stay. NetGear purchased Infrant back in 2007 and the range of ReadyNAS products available has increased greatly since the acquisition. NetGear is a leader in the NAS market. See NETGEAR RANKED AS LEADING NAS/UNIFIED STORAGE VENDOR IN 2011

deploylinux wrote:
That said, I have a few issues/changes: - I've been somewhat upset with the noise of the NV....I mean, the power/noise had substantiall reduced the use I have for it. I never realized before that infrant was making available the NV+ fanless PSU's available for the NV...it seems that it might make sense to order that -- if it can still be ordered? How much does it reduce noise?

It can't be ordered. However some have had success replacing the NV+ (v1) fan with a Noctua fan. Not sure about the NV but it may work for this model as well. This kind of modification voids the warranty but your unit is already long out of warranty anyway.

deploylinux wrote:
- On the other hand, is there any point in spending any $ upgrading the NV versus switching to something else? I'm OK migrating my data off the NAS and then back on. Can I move the drives to a newer unit to avoid buying all new drives with a new unit? I have two other 750GB drives from an older snap server

The NV+ (v1) was recently discontinued. It was an evolutionary upgrade over the NV with the same OS and performance, but with a few improvements such as an LCD screen.

You can't migrate your disks across directly to a new ReadyNAS on the x86 and ARM platforms as the RAID format is different. I recommend buying new disks, but you could use the old disks you have and then transfer the NV disks across after you've migrated the data. I'd recommend deleting the partitions on the NV disks, then hot-adding (add while NAS is on) them to the new NAS.

Please stick to using drives on the Hard Disk HCL

deploylinux wrote:
- Are newer readynas units much quitter?

2-bay and 6-bay units are a good choice if you want a quieter NAS.

deploylinux wrote:
Do any support NFS v4?

Yes. The new Duo/NV+ v2 (ARM) and the Ultra/Pro (x86) do.

deploylinux wrote:
How is the network teaming?

The ReadyNAS Pro Series supports this feature. I'd recommend the Pro 6 (RNDP6000-200).

deploylinux wrote:
- My primary purpose for the NAS is backups of a home workstation (I have about 7 x 2TB drives in a tower chassis). Ideally, changes in the data on that would be copied to the NAS daily. My workstation runs Linux -- I'm not sure if I would mount the readynas via NFS or iSCSI.

You'd have the choice of either on the Pro 6. You could try both and see which you prefer.

deploylinux wrote:
I don't think any of the default readynas backup software automatically performs dedup + snapshots with solid linux support.

No. There is the new ReadyDATA product but it is a 12-bay rackmount unit costing about $10k and is designed for server rooms where noise is no concern.

deploylinux wrote:
- Performance, I'm just not sure how newer readynas units compare against other home office nas vendors - especially for nfs or iscsi.

Take a look at ReadyNAS Pro Series Performance

deploylinux wrote:
The lack of nfsv4 on the NV has been frustrating.

Don't know whether that's planned or not. Much 3rd party development for the Sparc platform discontinued a long time ago. The x86 (Intel) and ARM platforms are developed for by 3rd parties which makes it much easier.

deploylinux wrote:
- Drive trays, I've had some of these get stuck like other NV owners....was this issue ever fixed for newer models?

Yes. New models ship with drive trays with a rectangular button.

deploylinux wrote:
On the other hand, the fact that the NV has been running all this time and supported and giving me no issues other than noise is something that makes me highly consider just continuing with it or upgrading to newer model rather than switching to a different vendor or building my own unit.

Personally I'd recommend upgrading to the Pro 6 but the choice is up to you.

Welcome to the forum!