NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Maximum disk size for ReadyNAS NV+ V2
I've had a disk failure on my ReadyNAS NV+ V2 today. It has 3 x 2TB disks at the moment with the disk in slot #3 having failed. I want to replace it with a higher capacity disk, but I'm unsure of what the maximum size disk my NAS can support. I've seen some posts mentioning people using 4TB disks, but the maximum volume capacity is 12TB, so I'm assuming I can have 4 x 4 TB, but 4TB of that will be used for storing parity information hence the 12 TB usable volume.
My NAS is running RAIDiator 5.3.13 if that helps.
Also I'd appreciate any tips on the best way to go about upgrading. I plan to replace the failed drive with a 4TB drive and also fill the empty slot with another 4TB drive. Slots 1 and 2 will retain their current 2TB drives.
You should make sure you have an up-to-date backup, as your volume is degraded.
alimbada wrote:
but the maximum volume capacity is 12TB,
No, it's not. Generally Netgear's datasheets use the largest size compatible disks when computing the capacity, and they don't revise the datasheets as larger disks become available. Back in 2011 when the NV+ v2 was launched, the largest disks available were 3 TB (giving you the 12 TB volume size).
There are two limitations on volume size in your NAS.
- the maximum volume size is 16 TiB
- a volume cannot grow more than 8 TiB from it's initial size.
Assuming you started with 3x2TB.... Your volume is 4 TB (3.63 TiB), so you can expand it to 12 TB. The actual ceiling is 11.63 TiB (12.7 TB), but of course disks come in TB increments now.
So in your case, you can expand to 12 TB. But you can go larger if you do a factory reset with the bigger disks in place, and then restore the data from a backup. For instance, 3x8TB.
alimbada wrote:
Also I'd appreciate any tips on the best way to go about upgrading. I plan to replace the failed drive with a 4TB drive and also fill the empty slot with another 4TB drive. Slots 1 and 2 will retain their current 2TB drives.
That will increase your volume size to 8 TB, and cost you about $220 USD.
Many desktop drives (and unfortunately some NAS-purposed models) have shifted to SMR technology - which isn't a great choice for RAID. I recommend either Seagate Ironwolf modes or WD EFRX models in the 2-6 TB size range. Avoid the newer WD EFAX drives in this size range - they are all SMR.
Another option is to fully expand your NAS volume now by going with two 8 TB drives. That would cost about $400 USD. If you want to go with the full 16 TB later, you'd then just need to get one more 8 TB (and do a factory reset with just those three drives in place). WD EFAX and Seagate Ironwolf are both good choices in this size range.
To expand, you hot-insert the first drive in slot three, and wait fo the volume to complete resyncing. Then hot-insert the second drive.
alimbada wrote:
Also I'd appreciate any tips on the best way to go about upgrading.
One other aspect to consider is the age of your NAS. Netgear stopped manufacturing them in 2013, and no longer provide firmware updates. It doesn't support SMB 3, and the version of TLS used to reach the web dashboard is also in the process of being deprecated by the browser community. So you should be thinking about when to replace it. A current ReadyNAS wouldn't have these limitations (and also has no known limits to volume size). It also has higher performance and some additional features.
What I've done myself is repurposed my legacy ReadyNAS as backups.
3 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
Welcome to the Community!
The maximum disk size the NV+ v2 supports is 4TB, using 4x4TB will result in RAID5 getting 12TB cap and 4TB protection just like what you have mentioned.
However, if you plan to use 2x2TB and 2x4TB volume capacity will be limited by the smallest disk. For example, if you are installing one 250GB drive and three 750GB drives, your data volume capacity will be limited to 250GB on each of the four disks. In Flex-RAID mode, you can utilize the leftover space on the 3 750GB disks by creating another data volume (3 x 500GB). With X-RAID, if you replace the single 250GB disk with a 750GB disk, your capacity will automatically expand, utilizing all 750 GB from each of the 4 disks.
https://kb.netgear.com/21387/What-is-the-volume-capacity-when-installing-disks-of-different-sizes
HTH
You should make sure you have an up-to-date backup, as your volume is degraded.
alimbada wrote:
but the maximum volume capacity is 12TB,
No, it's not. Generally Netgear's datasheets use the largest size compatible disks when computing the capacity, and they don't revise the datasheets as larger disks become available. Back in 2011 when the NV+ v2 was launched, the largest disks available were 3 TB (giving you the 12 TB volume size).
There are two limitations on volume size in your NAS.
- the maximum volume size is 16 TiB
- a volume cannot grow more than 8 TiB from it's initial size.
Assuming you started with 3x2TB.... Your volume is 4 TB (3.63 TiB), so you can expand it to 12 TB. The actual ceiling is 11.63 TiB (12.7 TB), but of course disks come in TB increments now.
So in your case, you can expand to 12 TB. But you can go larger if you do a factory reset with the bigger disks in place, and then restore the data from a backup. For instance, 3x8TB.
alimbada wrote:
Also I'd appreciate any tips on the best way to go about upgrading. I plan to replace the failed drive with a 4TB drive and also fill the empty slot with another 4TB drive. Slots 1 and 2 will retain their current 2TB drives.
That will increase your volume size to 8 TB, and cost you about $220 USD.
Many desktop drives (and unfortunately some NAS-purposed models) have shifted to SMR technology - which isn't a great choice for RAID. I recommend either Seagate Ironwolf modes or WD EFRX models in the 2-6 TB size range. Avoid the newer WD EFAX drives in this size range - they are all SMR.
Another option is to fully expand your NAS volume now by going with two 8 TB drives. That would cost about $400 USD. If you want to go with the full 16 TB later, you'd then just need to get one more 8 TB (and do a factory reset with just those three drives in place). WD EFAX and Seagate Ironwolf are both good choices in this size range.
To expand, you hot-insert the first drive in slot three, and wait fo the volume to complete resyncing. Then hot-insert the second drive.
alimbada wrote:
Also I'd appreciate any tips on the best way to go about upgrading.
One other aspect to consider is the age of your NAS. Netgear stopped manufacturing them in 2013, and no longer provide firmware updates. It doesn't support SMB 3, and the version of TLS used to reach the web dashboard is also in the process of being deprecated by the browser community. So you should be thinking about when to replace it. A current ReadyNAS wouldn't have these limitations (and also has no known limits to volume size). It also has higher performance and some additional features.
What I've done myself is repurposed my legacy ReadyNAS as backups.
Thanks for the quick replies.
I'm currently only using 2.3 TB of my 3.6TB capacity and it's taken me ~8 years to get to this point so an 8TB volume is more than enough for me for now. I currently have WD20EFRX drives which have served me well so I'll go with the suggested WD40EFRX which I was already leaning towards. On the other hand, I'm thinking I should just go for the most economical option and replace the dead drive with an identical replacement. I'd still have the option to expand with another 2TB drive later on if needed.
And while I do want to upgrade to a newer NAS (especially as the throughput on the NV+ V2 is so ridiculously slow due to the limited RAM available) there are way too many other things that are more important for me to be spending money on right now so I can't just yet unfortunately.
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
