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First Time new NV+ RND4000 user looking for advice
I have purchased a new RND4000 NV+ 4 Bay Ready Nas and two WD Green EARS 1Tb drives from Newegg.
I have been doing a lot of casual reading on these forums and am aware there may be chance of receiving a unit that has a potential power supply issue out of the box, hoping mine is new enough to have gotten the latest treatment for that.
I have also been reading up before purchasing when it comes to what drives to use and picked these for the 4K sector feature which as I understand it is now becoming the first norm in the Advanced Format arena.
My use is planned as being a backup solution for our laptops as well as serving media to a number of devices including a Popbox 3D media player. It will be wired into my DLink DIR-615 running DD-WRT firmware. Everything on the network is wired minus the two laptops.
I would like to ask any experienced users, knowing what you know now:
What would you do and in what order in order to make sure the drives are properly setup and used in 4k sector config in the NV+ ?
Would you definitely upgrade the memory from 256Mb to 1Gb or is it not really a noticeable upgrade?
I have two other 1Tb hard drives that are fairly new but they are a different make/model. They are Hitachi HCS5C1010CLA382 drives. So two WD Green EARS 1TB and two of these total. I was going to just use the WD greens together but will soon need to expand and was wondering what happens when you mix a pair of 4k sector drives with two that are not? WIll it even work? Can it be used that way until I can replace the other Hitachi's with WD Greens? I don't want to put the Hitachi's in if it is going to change the WD's back to 512 sectors or cause any issues, but if it won't cause issues, I would like to use them, otherwise I will sell them and buy WD Greens'
Anything else I need to know, or is there some sort of up to date new user guide I missed somewhere?
I have been doing a lot of casual reading on these forums and am aware there may be chance of receiving a unit that has a potential power supply issue out of the box, hoping mine is new enough to have gotten the latest treatment for that.
I have also been reading up before purchasing when it comes to what drives to use and picked these for the 4K sector feature which as I understand it is now becoming the first norm in the Advanced Format arena.
My use is planned as being a backup solution for our laptops as well as serving media to a number of devices including a Popbox 3D media player. It will be wired into my DLink DIR-615 running DD-WRT firmware. Everything on the network is wired minus the two laptops.
I would like to ask any experienced users, knowing what you know now:
What would you do and in what order in order to make sure the drives are properly setup and used in 4k sector config in the NV+ ?
Would you definitely upgrade the memory from 256Mb to 1Gb or is it not really a noticeable upgrade?
I have two other 1Tb hard drives that are fairly new but they are a different make/model. They are Hitachi HCS5C1010CLA382 drives. So two WD Green EARS 1TB and two of these total. I was going to just use the WD greens together but will soon need to expand and was wondering what happens when you mix a pair of 4k sector drives with two that are not? WIll it even work? Can it be used that way until I can replace the other Hitachi's with WD Greens? I don't want to put the Hitachi's in if it is going to change the WD's back to 512 sectors or cause any issues, but if it won't cause issues, I would like to use them, otherwise I will sell them and buy WD Greens'
Anything else I need to know, or is there some sort of up to date new user guide I missed somewhere?
9 Replies
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- Put one disk in the NAS and update to the latest firmware (via System > Update > Remote). Then power down put all drives in and do a factory default (http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu)
You can mix and match different drive models. 4k sector alignment works with both 4k sector and 512-byte sector drives.
Don't upgrade the memory as it's not supported.
Do note that when the disks are added to the ReadyNAS they will need to be wiped so if they are used disks backup the data on the disks first. - thanks
is the 4k sector alignment something you enable after the first drive is set up? or is it something the NV+ will just use by default if you are running the latest firmware and the drive allows?
i have read about 512e emulation of 4k sectoring, but have not yet read that the system can use a drive that does not have firmware supporting 4k as a 4k drive, essentially 4e emulation.... - If you last factory defaulted on RAIDiator 4.1.7 or later on the NV+ v1 then you will have 4k sector alignment.
The NV+ v2 (runs RAIDiator 5.3.x) has 4k sector alignment from the very first firmware release. - I haven't done anything yet as it hasn't shown up yet. :) I am trying to do my homework and be prepared so I only have to do this once.
So update to latest firmware on the NV+(it is a V1 unit, V2 too pricey), install first drive, factory reset, allow it to format first drive, add data to drive, install second drive, allow it to stripe, then I can add the third and forth 1tb hitachi drives. What about the fact the two WD Green drives are 64Mb cache and the Hitachi's are 8Mb cache drives? Will that hurt me much? gravytrain wrote:
So update to latest firmware on the NV+(it is a V1 unit, V2 too pricey), install first drive, factory reset
You have to install first drive before you can update the firmware.
So:
1. Install first drive
2. Factory default if necessary
3. Update to latest firmware
4. Do a factory default (with all drives in place would be quickest)
5. Copy your data onto the drives.gravytrain wrote:
, allow it to format first drive, add data to drive, install second drive, allow it to stripe, then I can add the third and forth 1tb hitachi drives.
You could do it that way, particularly if you have data on the drives already. I would hot-add (add while NAS is on) the additional drives so they are wiped and added to your array.gravytrain wrote:
What about the fact the two WD Green drives are 64Mb cache and the Hitachi's are 8Mb cache drives? Will that hurt me much?
You will be limited by the slowest drive. Shouldn't matter much.- ohhh yeah,
important question
would you use the XRAID or set up RAID5
either way with 4 1Tb drives my understanding is I should end up with 3Tb roughly storage and redundancy, but RAID 5 would have the additional benefit of having a separate drive that automatically kicks in should one of the other drives fail. Where RAIDX would just let me know a drive failed and I would have to then acquire a drive. Wondering though, in a RAID 5 setup, does the system sit and spin that fourth "unused" drive the entire time the array is running, seems like unnecessary wear.mdgm wrote:
2. Factory default if necessary
How do I know if it is necessary, I have read it could take all night for it to do this on the first drive. It will be a brand new drive out of the box, is it necessary? The data will need to be added to the two WD Greens before I can add the Hitachi's to the mix because they have data on them that I need to move to the array. So I figured I will install the two brand new WD Green's, drop the data on the array, then delete the partitions from the Hitachi's and add them to the array. Then I can replace the Hitachi's with WD Greens one at a time as funds allow. - X-RAID and RAID-5 both provide protection against a single disk failure. If you wanted RAID-5 + hot-spare (hot-spare automatically kicks in if a drive fails) you'd have a 3 disk RAID-5 volume (2TB) + add fourth disk as hot-spare. RAID-5 itself doesn't include a hot-spare. It is an optional extra that would require you to delete the volume created by default create the volume you want on three disks and designate the fourth as a hot-spare.
Personally I would stick with X-RAID as only X-RAID volumes are expandable, but that's my personal preference. - ok, i see, not going to give up one of 4 bays for the array to have an instant spare.....no problem getting a drive here within a week from newegg.....
gravytrain wrote:
How do I know if it is necessary
If it's a used disk it may be. If the NAS produces an error (e.g. corrupt root) on installation it's something I'd try.gravytrain wrote:
I have read it could take all night for it to do this on the first drive.
With one drive it shouldn't take too long. With multiple drives, the syncing sector by sector takes a while, but not as long as adding the drives one by one.gravytrain wrote:
It will be a brand new drive out of the box, is it necessary?
NAS should initiate factory default automatically then.gravytrain wrote:
The data will need to be added to the two WD Greens before I can add the Hitachi's to the mix because they have data on them that I need to move to the array. So I figured I will install the two brand new WD Green's, drop the data on the array, then delete the partitions from the Hitachi's and add them to the array. Then I can replace the Hitachi's with WD Greens one at a time as funds allow.
Sounds like a good plan.
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