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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS 3200 upgrades?
Hello! I'm new to this group and the new owner of a used READYNAS 3200. It came with eight (8) 2TB drives and old version 4.2.x firmware. I had read in these forums that I could increase the avai...
The 3200 has a mostly stock SuperMicro X7SB3-F motherboard. I think the IPMI hardware is absent. You can look up the expansion capabilities on the SuperMicro site. You can also look at what's in a 4200V1, as it is the same board with a different processor.
The BIOS upgrade discussions in this forum are not applicable to the 3200. You would have to use a SuperMicro tool to upgrade. But, that is not a good idea. With a non-Netgear version of the BIOS, you can end up with a unit that will not run the ReadyNAS firmware. The firmware will think you are trying to run it on a non-Netgear system and quit. See ReadyNAS-3200-RN12P-Firmware-BIOS-Reinstallation . The solution applied there is not revealed.
So, from looking at the spec sheet for the X7SB3-F, it shows support for the Core 2 Quad and ECC/non-ECC memory, so I think I will give it a shot. At best, it will run tasks like transcoding faster. At worst, it won't boot and I have to put the old hardware back in.
Wasn't really looking forward to a BIOS update anyway. Didn't seem like Netgear made it easy and as far as BIOS goes, I believe in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Thanks for the mobo info.
I noticed that the firmware is stored on a USB key. Is it possible to backup/copy that key, in case the original one ever fails?
Yes, you can backup the USB key using an imaging tool of your choice. I have used ImageUSB and Win32DiskImager to do so.
The 4200 uses a quad-core Xeon with the same motherboard, but I don't recall which one and nothing I Google seems to say, either.
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