ready nas ultra 6 Drive expansion with 6tb drives

Hi

The problem with going form OS4 to OS6 is "it isn't supported by Netgear" so they might change somehting in OS6 that screws up my Pinoeer Pro.   I have my data stored on a RAID6 system because I don't want to loose it. So whilst OS4 has priven reliable on my system Pioneer Pro I will stick with it.

I also have a 516 running OS6 that I can expand out to 60Tb (on top of the 24TB inthe Pioneer pro)   So eventually  84TB on online RAIDg storate is fine. 

I have (using the old disks from the expansion another  15TB of external USB disks for off line storeage. This will go up to 27TB as I expand the 516.

I have an article written in the 1980's by some one reviwing a (I think 16Kb) RAM pack for the Spectrum, computer. He said the interface was flaky so don't bother besides "real programmers" only needed 32 Kilobytes of memory anyway. I thin siliar was said when the firat PC's went over 512 Kb and the first hard disks were  10 Megabytes. SO I expcet that in a few years my 100TB of storage will be seen as far too restrictive :-)

Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions.

"Isn't supported by Netgear" refers to Warranty support (if you have any now) not the OS6 system itself, which is better supported than OS4 I suspect, 

It is unlikely anything will change in OS6 adversely affecting legacy NAS I hope.

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bedlam1 wrote:

"Isn't supported by Netgear" refers to Warranty support (if you have any now)

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Well, no.   Some folks (including some netgear mods) have mis-spoken on this point over the past years.

It means no paid support from my.netgear.com unless you first reinstall OS 4.2.  Service contracts won't be honored, per-incident support isn't available.  Netgear has told me that data recovery is an exception - that apparently is available for OS6 on legacy.

I think Netgear would have to honor the hardware warranty anyway, though it is unlikely that an ultra-6 would still have hardware warranty coverage.

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bedlam1 wrote:

...not the OS6 system itself, which is better supported than OS4 I suspect, 

It is unlikely anything will change in OS6 adversely affecting legacy NAS I hope.

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"Better supported" needs to be more nuanced.  OS-6 is under active development, with new features and security patches.  The version of linux is current, and has been updated several times in firmware releases.   So OS-6 is "better supported" in the sense that firmware updates happen often, with bugs are being fixed, security issues addressed, and new features added. 

But of course "no paid support" means that issues like inactive volumes, OS partition filling, etc won't be fixed by support - you'd need to hope that Netgear mods here will provide courtesy help, or of course do a factory reset and restore the NAS from backup.

One advantage of OS-6 is that your OS 4.2 NAS only supports SMBv1  (experimental SMBv2 can be turned on via ssh).  Microsoft is deprecating SMBv1.  OS-6 supports the current SMBv3.  In my own case this is not a concern - my pro-6 is now a backup NAS, so it doesn't actually need SMB enabled at all.  But if your NAS is a primary NAS, this will become an issue for you over time.

Another advantage is that you would be able to directly migrate your disks to a new OS-6 NAS when the time comes.

The main disadvantages are

• no option for paid support
• some risk that a future OS 6 update won't work on the ultra

But so far the development team has fixed issues with legacy platforms, especially during the open betas here.  Currently shipping OS6 x86 systems have at least 2 GB of memory, so you might consider upgrading the RAM in your ultra-6 if you decide to switch.

Note I'm not saying whether you should switch or not.  I'm just laying out the considerations.  Personally I likely will switch when my pro-6 needs a factory reset (or just retire it).

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bedlam1 wrote:

"Isn't supported by Netgear" refers to Warranty support (if you have any now) not the OS6 system itself, which is better supported than OS4 I suspect, 

It is unlikely anything will change in OS6 adversely affecting legacy NAS I hope.

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The Laws of Sod1, Finagle2 and Murphy3 all clearly state that anything unlikey WILL happen and hopes are doomed to dissapointment :-)

I have the "latest" version of the OS4 designed for the hardware.  I think I will minimise risks by staying with it. If I need any more storage over the planned 84TB online RAID I will get a new NAS with =>60TB storage. 

Ref1 Sod's Law

Ref 2: Finagles Law

Ref 3: Murphy Law

It's your choice.  But, IMHO, even if 6.9.1 were the last OS6 version compatible with my legacy hardware, it's a lot more current than 4.2.x and I would not go back (though that is an option).  One addition to the "unsupported" nature of OS6 on legacy:  It's not just warranty, Netgear will also not provide paid support after warranty.  But the forum certainly does provide support.

4.2.16 was the first firmware to support disks larger than 2TB. So you were running the last firmware not to support them (4.2.15).

There is a process to upgrade to OS6 and one to downgrade the unit back (both require a factory reset).

It’s an option, but it’s certainly fine to stay on RAIDiator-x86 4.2.x.

The limitations of RAIDiator-x86 4.2.x will become more of an issue over time for some at least.

For a backup unit many of the improvements from going to OS6 may not be so important and the ability to purchase support if needed is certainly a benefit of sticking with 4.2.x