Factory Reset to Expand Drives 3200 4.2.28

This is a great forum. Thanks everyone for your help and Support.

Since the unit is older I decided to upgrade it to OS6. The instructions below are a bit unclear. This is what I have done so far

(1) I downloaded and installed PREP4TOR6_0.1-x86.bin

(2) I downloaded and isntalled R4toR6_latest.bin

(3) I did a factory restore of the RadyNAS 3200

Happy to report that the RAIDar now says Volume data is syncing (6.5% complete)

I logged in to the Admin page and it says Firmware: 6.5.0-T338 and when I click on Check for Update it says I am now running the latest firmware. The data size now says 17.78 TB free. So it grew from 12TB to 17.78 TB (I am very happy)

I have rearranged the drives as follows below. The Resyncing process is also running much faster. Does anyone know if this will be the final size of the volume? It does seem to have cleared the 16TB limit on the x86 4.2.28 firmware. So strange that the new OS6 sees drives 5,6 and 7 as 2.2TB drives?

I have been told that bays 5-12 willn not see a drive larger than 2TB so here is what the Calculator says should be the final size

Capacity with Overhead 22TB = 20 TiB

I am surprised that ReadyNAS will not support this officially for its clients on the older X86 4.2.28 firmware for all devices. Clearly this proves it is possible so why not allow customers on older gear to upgrade.

We get longer life out of their gear and this would encourge many of us to continue to buy Netgear in the future.

Will post again after the entire process is done and I restore all of the orignal 11 TB of data which was backed up to Tape before I began this upgrade process.

Thanks again everyone.

Re: x86 homebrew OS6 development: no warranty/support
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‎2013-03-20 11:54 PM

Directions to upgrade your x86 legacy hardware from 4.X to 6.x
Supported so far: pro 2/4/6, ultra 2/4/6, old pro / Pioneer Pro, 2100v2
Not Supported: NVX and 2100v1

You will lose all of existing data on board.
You will most likely lose support from NTGR

1. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
2. Download 6.0.X package from NTGR
3. Edit the latest IMG for instalation by 4.2 Frontview
3. Install via 4.2.x menu
4. Reboot
5. Factory Default the system
Specifics here: http://netgear.nas-central.org/wiki/Con ... ReadyNASOS

OR (once your data is backed up)

Optional (do before step 2 below): R4toR6_Prep_Addon.bin (26 KB) (upload before modified IMG, don't reboot, avoids the need for manual factory default in between)

OS6 in 3 Steps: 1. Download pre modified IMG, (see link above to see what has been modified)
2. Upgrade firmware in Frontview 4.2 (with above file)
3. Reboot & factory default via boot menu