Greetings all, I have a situation. I have a 4 year old 24TB Readynas 3200 that is still super functional. Unfortunately, when I purcased, I only bought one extra WD 2TB Drive (WD2003FYYS) I do not plan on retireing this $6k+ device as it has performed admirably. I just need a couple more extra drives, and of course all of the drives on the official Netgear compatibility list are not available any more. Has anyone any experience with more modern drives? I just want a couple of 2TB models with similar specs to the WD2003FYYS (2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s ) Any suggestions? Thank you!Rob

So long as you're running 4.2.12 (or later) you could replace the disks (one at a time) and get 4k sector partition alignment.

(I don't own a ReadyNAS 3200 or ever tried any of these drives myself.)I believe WD2000FYYZ is a newer version of WD2003FYYS.WD2000FYYZ is listed as compatible with the ReadyNAS 3200.If you can't find any of these either, maybe you can take a look at the HCL of the ReadyNAS 3220, they should be similar (even though they don't run the same OS).

The 3200 is a very slightly customized version of a Supermicro server running the Netgear software. Pretty much any enterprise grade drive should work on it (up to the limitations of the ports, which is 2TB on all but the first 4). With a 12-bay chassis, I would not suggest desktop or even NAS purposed drives. The ability to use advanced format drives does depend on at what OS version the last factory default was performed. I don't recall the critical version, but I'm sure one of the moderators will chime in. Your 3200 can run OS6.x, too, if you so choose. It requires a factory default and won't lift the hardware limitation on drive sizes. One thing I have wondered is if you can disable the RAID controller in the motherboard via the BIOS and install an LSI 9211-8i card, as is built into the 4200V2 and have the OS recognize it. That would get you past the 2TB limitation. You'd need the right cables, too, but it would be a lot cheaper than upgrading the whole machine (though no increase in speed).

It will give you 4k sector partition alignment for the disk that is added. If a disk was added before 4.2.12 then it would not be 4k sector partition aligned unless after updating to 4.2.12 you removed it, then added it back again and waited for the resync to complete before moving onto the next disk.

WDC Reds are 5400 rpm, but you weren't looking at those. The Red Pros and RE drives are 7200 rpm. Golds should be a fine choice. You could go to 3 TB, since that ensures that the new drives have at least the same number of sectors as the old. rob-catron wrote: My plans would be, since I am re-provisioning some of my equipment locally, to keep Volume C, delete volume D and expand Volume C to the full 24TB, That expansion will fail. With OS 4.2 a volume can't expand to more than 16 TiB a volume can't expand more than 8 TiB larger than it's initial size. You hit both those limits.

Upgrading an old ReadyNAS 3200 | NETGEAR Communities

12 Replies

jak0lantash
Mentor
May 03, 2017
(I don't own a ReadyNAS 3200 or ever tried any of these drives myself.)
I believe WD2000FYYZ is a newer version of WD2003FYYS.
WD2000FYYZ is listed as compatible with the ReadyNAS 3200.
If you can't find any of these either, maybe you can take a look at the HCL of the ReadyNAS 3220, they should be similar (even though they don't run the same OS).
- rob-catron
  Aspirant
  May 04, 2017
  jak0lantash wrote:
  (I don't own a ReadyNAS 3200 or ever tried any of these drives myself.)
  I believe WD2000FYYZ is a newer version of WD2003FYYS.
  WD2000FYYZ is listed as compatible with the ReadyNAS 3200.
  If you can't find any of these either, maybe you can take a look at the HCL of the ReadyNAS 3220, they should be similar (even though they don't run the same OS).
  
  Thank you - the FYYZ is long out of production as well. The issue with buying old drives (at least that I have been shopping for) is that they are pulled/refurbed/etc - and nearly none of them are new. I have been on the verge of buying a couple of them from Amazon, but reading all the reviews has stopped me from doing so (as many of them had a ton of hours already on them)
  
  I was really looking for a modern, in production replacement - I will look at the 3220 HCL
Sandshark
Sensei
May 03, 2017
The 3200 is a very slightly customized version of a Supermicro server running the Netgear software. Pretty much any enterprise grade drive should work on it (up to the limitations of the ports, which is 2TB on all but the first 4). With a 12-bay chassis, I would not suggest desktop or even NAS purposed drives. The ability to use advanced format drives does depend on at what OS version the last factory default was performed. I don't recall the critical version, but I'm sure one of the moderators will chime in.

Your 3200 can run OS6.x, too, if you so choose. It requires a factory default and won't lift the hardware limitation on drive sizes.

One thing I have wondered is if you can disable the RAID controller in the motherboard via the BIOS and install an LSI 9211-8i card, as is built into the 4200V2 and have the OS recognize it. That would get you past the 2TB limitation. You'd need the right cables, too, but it would be a lot cheaper than upgrading the whole machine (though no increase in speed).
- mdgm-ntgr
  NETGEAR Employee Retired
  May 03, 2017
  So long as you're running 4.2.12 (or later) you could replace the disks (one at a time) and get 4k sector partition alignment.
  - rob-catron
    Aspirant
    May 04, 2017
    mdgm wrote:
    So long as you're running 4.2.12 (or later) you could replace the disks (one at a time) and get 4k sector partition alignment.
    Thank you! I am running the latest 4.2.30 - so I should be good to add a modern 2TB drive, then, correct? Any suggestions?
    
    I was looking at WD site, specifically their gold datacenter drive series (as Red's look to be 5400 RPM)
    
    WD2005FBYZ 2TB SATA 6Gb s 7200 128MB https://www.wdc.com/products/business-internal-storage/wd-gold.html#WD2005FBYZ
- rob-catron
  Aspirant
  May 04, 2017
  Sandshark wrote:
  The 3200 is a very slightly customized version of a Supermicro server running the Netgear software. Pretty much any enterprise grade drive should work on it (up to the limitations of the ports, which is 2TB on all but the first 4).
  That is what I figured - surely any comparable spec modern Enterprise drive would work. It would be nice if Netgear would maintain legacy unit's HCL list (especially when customers paid $6k+ for them back in the day), but I understand that legacy means legacy, lol

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Upgrading an old ReadyNAS 3200

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