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Forum Discussion
Limitations of RN51600
Hi all,
Just to start I like to say that I have a four bay NV+ and a Ultra 6. I'm so happy with the units I am looking to get another unit, I'm looking getting the RN51600 this time but, before I pull the trigger I have a couple of questions that I would like answers to just to make sure that I get the right unit.
Questions:
1) Does the RN51600 have any limitation in terms of adding drives? Would I be able to start with 3 4Tb harddrives and then add another 3 at another date and still get the full sized volume? I have seen that on other, older boxes there was that their was a 8Tb limitation on the ability to grow the volume.
2) How does the ED500 work? How does it work with the RN51600? I have searched and I have not found any details on how they work together. Am I correct to assume that the EDA500 connects to the RN51600 via SATA, does it grow the main volume or does it create its own volume? If I have 3 EDA500 connected to the RN51600 would this be one big volume or 4 smaller volumes.
3) Does the EDA500 have any 8Tb limitations? See question 1.
4) Are there any 'brains' in the EDA500? Or, is all the computing power for the RN51600 with 3x EDA500's system actually in the RN51600? I ask this question because if all the computing power for the system is in the RN51600 it would increase the need to have more computing power in the main unit.
5) Would I be able to add a EDA500 unit now, another next year and, another the year after?
Thanks,
Shannon
Just to start I like to say that I have a four bay NV+ and a Ultra 6. I'm so happy with the units I am looking to get another unit, I'm looking getting the RN51600 this time but, before I pull the trigger I have a couple of questions that I would like answers to just to make sure that I get the right unit.
Questions:
1) Does the RN51600 have any limitation in terms of adding drives? Would I be able to start with 3 4Tb harddrives and then add another 3 at another date and still get the full sized volume? I have seen that on other, older boxes there was that their was a 8Tb limitation on the ability to grow the volume.
2) How does the ED500 work? How does it work with the RN51600? I have searched and I have not found any details on how they work together. Am I correct to assume that the EDA500 connects to the RN51600 via SATA, does it grow the main volume or does it create its own volume? If I have 3 EDA500 connected to the RN51600 would this be one big volume or 4 smaller volumes.
3) Does the EDA500 have any 8Tb limitations? See question 1.
4) Are there any 'brains' in the EDA500? Or, is all the computing power for the RN51600 with 3x EDA500's system actually in the RN51600? I ask this question because if all the computing power for the system is in the RN51600 it would increase the need to have more computing power in the main unit.
5) Would I be able to add a EDA500 unit now, another next year and, another the year after?
Thanks,
Shannon
23 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- The 8 TiB limitation does not apply to any the OS6 products (including the RN51600).
I don't have an ED500, so I will let others comment on that. - ad 1) RN51600 has 6 drive bays. If you load all of them with 4 TB disks, you have 24 TB and effectively you will have 17 TB storage capacity if you use XRAID2 RAID5. I use it all in one volume:
I started with 6 drives from scratch, so I have no experience with extending. But I advise you to look in the software manual in the section "Expand Storage Capacity" (link to manuals below).
ad 2) I don't have EDA500, but on http://www.netgear.nl/business/products/storage/ReadyNAS-EDA500/EDA500.aspx#two, for ReadyNAS 516, it lists a Total Solution Capacity Internal: 24 TB and for RN516 with optional EDA500 unit(s): 84 TB. So I would assume you can create 1 big volume of 84 TB. Can someone with EDA500 confirm?
On the same page mentioned above, it lists:- Compatible with RN300 series and RN500 series
- 5-bay expansion chassis
- Supports both SATA and SSD
- Connects through eSATA cable (included)
ad 3) Don't think so. Point 2) mentions 84 TB, so that would be 24 TB in RN516 and 3x 20 TB in 3x EDA500.
ad 4) The hardware manual lists the "EDA 500 Technical Specifications". There's no mention of a CPU, so I assume it is the RN516 that has to provide the computing power.
ad 5) Don't know. (If I had to guess I would say yes)
More info can be found in the hardware manual and software manual at:
http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/RN%20OS%206%20Desktop%20HW%20UM_15Oct2013.pdf
http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS%20OS6.1%20SW%20UM16Oct2013.pdf - Creating a single 84 TB volume would be a bad idea. Much better to limit yourself to 1 volume per chassis.
Storage units reported on the Web UI are TiB, not TB (1024*1024*1024*1042 bytes = 1 TiB). Your volume seems to about 800 GB smaller than I'd expect. - You have to create separate volumes for the EDA500s. If you had one big volume and accidentally disconnected an EDA500 it would be big trouble.
AbbottWins wrote: does it grow the main volume or does it create its own volume? mdgm wrote: You have to create separate volumes for the EDA500s. If you had one big volume and accidentally disconnected an EDA500 it would be big trouble.
What I gather from the answers from mdgm, is that you could theoratically build one big 84 TB volume, but in real life you shouldn't, because it's bad practice and you run a great risk of losing data if an EDA500 gets accidentally disconnected.AbbottWins wrote: If I have 3 EDA500 connected to the RN51600 would this be one big volume or 4 smaller volumes.
Based on StephenB's recommendation, I would go for 4 smaller volumes.StephenB wrote: Creating a single 84 TB volume would be a bad idea. Much better to limit yourself to 1 volume per chassis. - There is no supported way to create one big volume. The GUI won't let you.
StephenB wrote: Storage units reported on the Web UI are TiB, not TB (1024*1024*1024*1042 bytes = 1 TiB).
I always get a bit confused in this TiB vs TB issue. I was just qouting what I see on my screen. There it lists:- data: 1.13 TB
free: 16.32 TBStephenB wrote: Your volume seems to about 800 GB smaller than I'd expect.
1.13 TB + 16.32 TB = 17.45 TB. I rounded it down to 17 TB. Maybe that accounts for the difference?
root@nas-FF-FF-FF:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 4.0G 1.3G 2.1G 38% /
tmpfs 10M 4.0K 10M 1% /dev
/dev/md0 4.0G 1.3G 2.1G 38% /
tmpfs 1.9G 48K 1.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1.9G 8.8M 1.9G 1% /run
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /media
/dev/md127 19T 1.2T 17T 7% /data
/dev/md127 19T 1.2T 17T 7% /home
/dev/md127 19T 1.2T 17T 7% /apps- 17.45 TiB is about 19,186,477,904,691 bytes (17.45*1024*1024*1024*1024)
That would be 19.19 TB (which is just power of 10). Your df command is reporting that also (19T)
But since the raw drive space is 20 TB, that means there are about 800 GB not accounted for. The OS and swap partitions account for some of it (about 30 GB), but I am not sure where the rest is.
I'm not saying this means something is wrong with your unit, just that there is some overhead that is not accounted for. mdgm wrote: There is no supported way to create one big volume. The GUI won't let you.
While I am not sure about a GUI setting, I do know that when the EDA500 is connected and there is no pre-existing volume, OS6 will ask if you want to enlarge the primary volume on the RN516 using the drives in the EDA500... Not a good idea as others have pointed out, but does seem doable...StephenB wrote: But since the raw drive space is 20 TB, that means there are about 800 GB not accounted for. The OS and swap partitions account for some of it (about 30 GB), but I am not sure where the rest is.
The WDC WD4000FYYZ-01ULB0 disk is claimed to be pre-formatted with "Advanced Format" (See http://www.alternate.nl/upload/Advanced_Format.pdf). When I installed it fresh from the packaging I followed the installation instructions and if I remember correctly formatting by the RN516 is part of that. Could it be that RN516 doesn't support the "Advanced Format"? And does that explains the "loss" of 800 GB?
I have 6 disks, so I would expect to see 24 TB. Is this 6th disk standby, is it fully taken by the XRAID2 RAID5 or is there some other explanation why these 4 TB don't show?
(tebibyte, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebibyte)
(terabye, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabyte)
I think most hard disk manufactures list their disk sizes in TB (terabyte), rather than TiB (tetibyte). So my 4 TB disk drive has 4000000000000 Bytes (converted with http://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-memory-from-TB-to-B.html). And 4000000000000 Bytes = 3.6379788070917 TiB (converted with http://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-memory-from-B-to-TiB.html). Would that explain the difference?
Or does the difference in block-size in the df command explain the 800 GB difference?
df --block-size=1T lists 19
df --block-size=1TB lists 20root@nas-FF-FF-FF:~# df --help
....
Display values are in units of the first available SIZE from --block-size,
and the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE and BLOCKSIZE environment variables.
Otherwise, units default to 1024 bytes (or 512 if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set).
SIZE may be (or may be an integer optionally followed by) one of following:
KB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y.
.....
root@nas-FF-FF-FF:~# df --block-size=1TB
Filesystem 1TB-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 1 1 1 38% /
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /dev
/dev/md0 1 1 1 38% /
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /run
tmpfs 1 0 1 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 1 0 1 0% /media
/dev/md127 20 2 18 7% /data
/dev/md127 20 2 18 7% /home
/dev/md127 20 2 18 7% /apps
root@nas-FF-FF-FF:~# df --block-size=1T
Filesystem 1T-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 1 1 1 38% /
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /dev
/dev/md0 1 1 1 38% /
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1 1 1 1% /run
tmpfs 1 0 1 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 1 0 1 0% /media
/dev/md127 19 2 17 7% /data
/dev/md127 19 2 17 7% /home
/dev/md127 19 2 17 7% /apps
Update 2014-11-27 (from http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=580#Tab3):WD wrote: As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for buffer or cache, one megabyte (MB) = 1,048,576 bytes. As used for transfer rate or interface, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second, megabit per second (Mb/s) = one million bits per second, and gigabit per second (Gb/s) = one billion bits per second.
I wonder if the bold italic text above explains the missing 800 GB?
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