Forum Discussion

Guide

Sep 15, 2016

Upgrade 1, upgrade all, or junk it

I have a less than two-year old ReadyNAS (516) with four 4TB drives and all is well. I also have a seven-year old ReadyNAS ProBusiness Edition. I have been using the older model to back up the newer ...

NETGEAR Employee Retired

Sep 15, 2016

You may not need to yet. The count is pretty low and not climbing rapidly.
This is a backup unit. You can replace all the disks if you want, but I don't think you need to. Though a conservative approach would be to replace all the disks considering their age.
We'd love it if you got a new unit, but I don't think you need to yet. Using the Pro as a backup unit I'd probably run it till it dies at this stage. It could be that a fan in it needs replacing, but replacing it would be at your own risk. Having said that having two units running the same OS and both supported to run that OS would have its advantages. Your patience, in waiting rather than just replacing the unit unnecessarily months ago may have already paid off. We have just released two new models, namely the RN526X and RN626X which both have two 10GBASE-T ports. I would look into those if you decide to get a new unit, or perhaps another RN516.

We expect to release RAIDiator-x86 4.2.30 soon with some security fixes.

everytime

Guide

Sep 15, 2016

Thank you for your insight. You have hit upon all of my concerns. I know that the sector count is not rising rapidly, but it's still a little unsettling. Yet, it is a backup unit.

The fact that you are releasing a new version of the OS is certainly encouraging.

I saw the promo on your new units and the specs are impressive. One is not in the budget at this time, but it's good to see Netgear continuing to develop these kinds of storage products. Plus, with Amazon's 1 or 2 day shipping, should the drive fail, I can replace it when I need to with little down time.

So, again, thank you for your rapid and helpful reply.

bedlam1
Prodigy
Sep 15, 2016
Why don't you upgrade the Pro to OS6, which I assume is running on your 516 ?
- everytime
  Guide
  Sep 15, 2016
  Yes, I’m running OS 6.5.1 on my 516.
  
  I have a couple of questions about your suggestion. First, what would the benefits (and downsides) be to upgrading the 6310 ProBusiness to OS6? And, if I do the upgrade:
  The last time I looked, OS6 was designed for the newer ReadyNASs. Have they changed it to work on the older NASs?
  Will the upgade delete all the data on it?
  Which version of OS6 do I download to do the upgrade?
  How much time does it take to do the upgrade?
  
  Thank you.
  - StephenB
    Guru - Experienced User
    Sep 15, 2016
    First, I see no reason to take the Pro Business out of service. It's a perfectly fine backup unit. I'd run it until it fails.
    
    everytime wrote:
    1. The last time I looked, OS6 was designed for the newer ReadyNASs. Have they changed it to work on the older NASs?
    
    Netgear doesn't support OS6 on 4.2.x systems, but in fact you can switch if you are using pro/ultra. The NVX won't work (because it uses a 32 bit CPU).There is guidance here on the steps.
    
    One benefit is that the expansion limits that apply to OS 4.2 (16 TiB max volume and 8 TiB growth limit) do not apply to OS 6. Another likely benefit for you is that you might be able to use the new ReadyDR backup tools - that depends on whether the OS recognizes your pro business as a "business model".
    
    The drawback is the lack of support. Netgear has fixed platform specific bugs so far (mostly fan related), but there is no guarantee that will continue.
    
    My pro-6 is still running 4.2.x - if I need to do a reset for other reason I'll likely switch. But I see no need to rush it.
    
    everytime wrote:
    2. Will the upgrade delete all the data on it?
    
    Yes, the process includes a factory reset.
    
    everytime wrote:
    
    3. Which version of OS6 do I download to do the upgrade?
    
    4. How much time does it take to do the upgrade?
    
    There are two binaries that need to be installed (perhaps a third if your bios is out of date). There are links in other threads.
    
    The bulk of the time is re-building the raid array and restoring all the data from backup. Likely a week of calendar time if you are are running 6x3TB single redundancy.