Forum Discussion

davidk1952

Luminary

Dec 27, 2020

Solved

Alert Less than 20% of volume data's capacity is free. Performance on volume data will degrade

Firmware 6.10.3 I am seeing this allert Less than 20% of volume data's capacity is free. Performance on volume data will degrade if additional capacity is consumed. NETGEAR recommends that you ad...

StephenB
Dec 28, 2020
davidk1952 wrote:

I assumed the difference from 16TB total drive to the 10.9TB the overhead is taken up i the difference,

Just to clarify the volume size. With XRAID/RAID-5 the volume capacity for 4x4TB is 12 TB. The other 4 TB are used for RAID parity blocks (which is what the system uses to rebuild a disk when it is replaced).

But the NAS reports sizes in TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes), not TB (1000*1000*1000*1000 TB). 12 TB is the same as 10.9 TiB.

2.26/10.9 is about 20% (slighty more, but there could be some accounted for space).

The warnings are quite conservative. Generally I expand my volume when free space drops to about 15%, and I haven't had any issues with stability.

FWIW, I do leave quotas on, so I can see the space used by every share.

davidk1952

Luminary

Dec 27, 2020

Good Morning, So, I have gone in and selected and clicked Quota off on both of my RN 204 units re booted, then did the firmware update and rebooted and everything went smooth on both units. The amount of disc space did not change it is still as it was before the updates and reboot My one unit still shows 2.28TB of 10.9 left, and everything seems to be working property. My concern was of course the notice that the system performance would drop and that is somehting I do not want :-)

Thanks for the link to the capacity upgrade, since I am in Raid 5 it says I need to replace 2 drives at a time, is that correct and is there any suggetion on which 2 drives to start with when upgrading? My guess would be go to 8TB drives if I do the upgrade on this sytem.

Saying that, thanks for the info on the ARM vs Intel I will do a little more reading, Is there a specific unit that seems more reliable than others? I am guessing I'd stay with the 4 drive systems (although I am seeing 5 drive systems on line) I use the NAS mainly for storage feeding my PLex server, it is all used only in our home and usually only one TV at a time although over the years I have collected alot of content.. have ripped and put all of my DVD and CD collection on line and ripped all the CDs to FLAC losless and it has worked perfectly and made finding and playing my music much easier. Our network is a 1GB network and is all Cat 6 cables with pretty much everyting either direct home run or through a variety of GB switches.

I guess since I am thinking of getting higher capacity drives it may well look at adding another NAS, like I mentioned I will look at the intel based systems and if you have any suggestions on "Reliable" manufactuers I'd appreciate it.

From your signature, it says you are not currently a Netgear employee, so you do this for fun now (support) for us on the forum, I'd say, you are much higher level than alot of folks I see on support forums.... and I"m glad your here.

If you would like to answer any of my questions via PM that would be fine, I understand this is a Netgear forum and other manufacture discussions may not be allowed... so a PM may work better :-)

Thanks again for your help and I look forward to your respones.

Dave

rn_enthusiast

Virtuoso

Dec 27, 2020

Yea personally I wouldn't run with quotas enabled but it is a personal choice but at least you know now that the space you see taken is correct and not influenced by wonky quotas :)

With raid 5 you need to add at least two disks for the expansion to work. Again, add one disk and let is sync in, then the next one, etc. Never pull two disks at the same time! Always ensure you have an up-to-date back before staring - just in case.

There is a HDD compatibility list here: https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-List

Finding a HDD in that list would be a good call. Be careful not to pick a drive that uses SMR (Shingled magnetic recording). Those are bad for NAS drives and I would also avoid any "green" drives. Besides that, pick what you like or see a good deal on.

I use the RN4xx series at home. The RN424 is a very good unit and Intel based. Can be used for Plex too without issues but I would have picked the RN426 if I would do it over again because that unit has a stronger CPU and upgradeable RAM. The RAM on the RN422 and RN424 are soldered to the motherboard. They are going to be a little more pricey but worth the cost in my opinion and they are a good enthusiast level NAS. Anything above that (RN5xx and RN6xx series) are awesome but also much higher price point and likely overkill for home use.

https://www.netgear.co.uk/business/products/storage/readynas/readynas-desktop.aspx#tab-models

One thing we have noticed recently is that the ReadyNAS line seems to be on low stock many places. There is nothing official from Netgear on this though but they haven't updated with new models in 3+ years so they might be fading out the ReadyNAS line, who knows! I wouldn't necessarily let that deter you as you will still get the warranty, etc. when buying the unit. The RN4xx, 5xx and 6xx line also comes with 5 years warranty as opposed to the ARM based series 3 years. If I were to look else where for a NAS I would look at Synology and QNAP. I am very interested in the new QuTS Hero line that has just come out this year as those NAS units use the ZFS filesystem (and they are expensive) but that just because I am a nerd when it comes to these things :)

I worked in Netgear for around 5 years and left in early 2018 but I like Netgear's products and I re-visit the forums from time to time to try and help people out. I had a change of email and stuff so I had to create a new forums profile. This is my old profile, in case you were wondering:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/336529

Cheers

davidk1952
Luminary
Dec 27, 2020
So, I have Quota's turned off and not going to worry about it, thanks for the tip. In my first Iomega Nas units shipped with Seagate Baracuda 7200 drives and honestly they worked pretty good for quite some time... I switched to WD RED 5400 drives as I replaced the Seagates and increased capacity and I guess I've been sticking with the Red drives since... each of my RN204 have 4e 4TB Red drives. It has just worked and it's easy to find them. Now the SMR issue has just started to show up in the last 6months of discuddions, some say the Red are and some say they are not...but going forward I'll be sure to stay away from any that are... As drives got cheaper and going to 1 platter with high compression I can only imagine the nightmare they could be. I will take a look at the compatitbility list before I do anything... Too bad I missed the sale on 8TB 5400 drives before christmas, I should have just picked up 4 of them :-)

I will checkout the NAS systems you mentioned, I"ve kind of kept my eye the market, who knows there might be a sale before New Years.... (it's my wifes birthday, I"ll buy it and tell it is for her for her birthday since she likes so many movies)... don't think it will work, but I"ll try.

My background as I had said started back in the day of the IBM, HP DEC and other computers that stood 6' tall and today would have less power than your cell phone, technlogy for the end user has reallly stepped up and I had the oppertunity at being on the front end of it.. (see your PM from me) depending on your age you may or may not remeber it...

When I was working the companines I was involved with did alot of international business so I got to travel quite a bit, I remember the days of the Hanover Fair, staning in a booth for 10 days each year and spending time with my wife traveling and visiting the different countries ..

Anyway thanks for the help I really appreciate it..

Dave
Sandshark
Sensei
Dec 27, 2020
davidk1952 wrote:
Now the SMR issue has just started to show up in the last 6months of discuddions, some say the Red are and some say they are not...but going forward I'll be sure to stay away from any that are...

Currently shipping "Red" drives <8TB are SMR. After being called out on the issue, WD introduced the "Red Plus" line, which is still 5400RPM but also CMR. "Red Pro" are still CMR, and are 7200RPM.
davidk1952
Luminary
Dec 27, 2020
So go Red Pro if I'm going to change... Good to know... They were just on sale, darn!