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Forum Discussion
Upgrade Readynas Pro 6
I'm a happy owner of a newly aquired elderly ReadyNAS Pro 6 running lates OS 6.10.3 in otherwise stock configuration: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @1.80GH 1 GB Installed Memory BIOS 08/20/20...
Hi Sandshark and thanks for kind input !
Bit of a bummer with the old BIOS. When I read the "bios_ver.log" file it read "08/20/2008 FLAME6-MB V1.5". Since I have already purchased both the Memory sticks and both processors (all found cheap second hand), I could just give it a try and see if it will work out with no BIOS upgrade.
Since I have not started to use the NAS yet, there are no data on it, so if none of the new hardware is accepted I gues I could do a factory reset to revert to OS 4, and then run "IOS_Update_Package_0.5-x86.bin" to see if it will update BIOS.
The only thing I'm a bit worried about if I do a factory reset, is that I had the issue with incorrrect Serial Number being shown preventing me from logging on to ReadyCloud, which "JohnCM_S" kindly sorted out for me (fantasc help I got there). If I factory reset, will I then also delete the correct serial and end up where I were before JohnCM_S helped out....
Oh well, fiddeling with old stuff is not easy - but fun, and as I really like the unit I would love to extend the life of it...
Just to give you a heads up, the likelihood that the e7600 will work is very slim. The e7600 is of a different architecture and back in the lga775 days if the bios didn't support the newer architecture, it wouldn't work. :(
That being said, the x3230 you're looking at should work as long as the nas supports a 1066 front side bus. But I would expect your fan to run faster in order to cool it since it is a 100w processor vs 65w. I've done a lot of upgrades (on computers not nas units) like this and as long as the fan runs faster or 100% all the time, you won't have an issue with cooling.
But the real question on processor upgrade choice is what matters more--cores or single thread performance? Because if it's single thread performance, the e2220 has a very high chance of working and providing a serious boost:
Please report back if the e7600 works. :) It sucks that all this has been done before and is lost due to system transitions...seems like the entire Internet is only 10 years old because of all this data loss. :(
Hey SamirD. Thanks for your comments and advice. As I'm told that I can revert to os4 do the BIOS upgrade and revert to os6 without loosing the newly installed serial number 😉, the I will give the Bios update a try before installing new hardware.
Should all fail, the advice you give on the e2220 is great, I did not think of an upgrade within the same series as original 🙄, but now when you point at it it's obvious 👍🏻 Thanks.
These days we all have to think about giving stuff a second life for the sake of the planet, and the ReadyNAS Pro box I saved from the scrap yard (where our company IT wanted it to end it's short life) is way way to nicely build to go out like that. I hope it will serve a good many years to come in my home after a bit of surgery 😉.
I'll post my progress...
If the bios upgrade is successful, it should allow you to use the e7600 which is definitely much faster than the e2220 or the current e2160. And don't forget that these units can actually take up to 8gb of ram so someday when those modules are cheap enough, you can upgrade to them and continue to extend the unit's life.
These units were made really well and since a lot of the components are standard, they can be upgraded and live on. I actually am in a similar situation as you as I purchased an Ultra 6 fairly cheap with the intent of running a few spare drives in it since it has 6 bays. It is also potentially a better use case than a WD EX unit I have off site as this unit has dual lan connections which I need at the site where the WD unit is.
I have always had a soft spot for working hardware. If it still works, it deserves to live on until its demise. The hard part sometimes is finding an application since a lot of older hardware is simply destined for running things only from its era. Luckily, nas units don't have as much of an issue with this. I actually have 3x Intel ss4200-e units that I've restored. Ironically, they are also using standard lga775 processors. I even have an older synology. And the great thing about multiple nas units which are all different is that they will never all fail in the same way. So besides the normal best practice of 3-2-1 backups, having multiple nas units in the mix adds even more redundancy, especially when off site.
One thing I would do if you haven't already is to test what type of transfer speeds you are currently getting from the nas with a single drive. This can be your benchmark so you can see how much of an improvement you get from the cpu upgrade. I would also benchmark both os6 vs os4 since you have to downgrade to os4 anyways. I don't know if that's ever been done before either.
I've found that all of my nas units are in the same range of speeds with the synology and the readynas towards the top, but these units also have the newest/fastest drives in them, so it could be just drives. The exception to that is the intel units as even with a full ssd array, there was no improvement to the maximum transfer speeds. That's actually the long term plan with all these nas units--as ssds become cheap, replace drives with ssds and then these units will become even faster than they are. There's no reason why these can't be working 20 years from now.
Thanks all for your comments and advice - great help!
Step 1: Upgrading BIOS:
DONE! and all went smooth. I for sure set off with sweaty palms, but upgrading from old BIOS v. 1.5 to latest 2.0 was possible - no hickups at all.
I downgraded from os6 to os4 following the guidelines found on the forum, updated BIOS with no error messages, and upgraded back to os6.
My unit keept the newly aquired serial number - and is now humming away again.
Thanks to all - now I'm just waiting for the various parts to arrive; new low noise fans, 4 gb of Ram and the E7600 processor. I hope installing those parts will be as successfull as the BIOS update.
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