RN516 Memory Upgrade

It is the same chassis as the Pro6/Ultra6Plus, so you could follow what others have used in those models: viewforum.php?f=110

516 has ECC modules, so I don't think any of the previous model memory upgrade history is applicable?

I just installed this Crucial kit and all seems well:
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs. ... 2472BD160B

I ordered the following: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LM ... UTF8&psc=1

I noticed yours are 1.35v mine are 1.5v. Will have them Tuesday and wonder if I should return and order the kit from crucial???

I would suggest running at least a few passes of the memory test (one of the boot menu options) before trusting the memory. The memory test progress can be seen on a display connected to your NAS via HDMI.

Note even then the memory might not be compatible. If there is data corruption due to using 3rd party memory NetGear will be unable to help you recover your data.

I want to do the same thing with my 516. After you run the mem tests please post back.

I installed the same memory as scoombs, RN 516 is running fine...

Has to be Unbuffered ECC, not Registered ECC...

Govnah wrote:
I ordered the following: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LM ... UTF8&psc=1 I noticed yours are 1.35v mine are 1.5v. Will have them Tuesday and wonder if I should return and order the kit from crucial???

The above works fine. Ran memtest via boot menu for ~6 hours and no issues.

I just recently did this upgrade as well and am quite pleased with the result. I purchased the 2x8gb set from Crucial, and did the necessary memory test for several hours before doing a normal restart. It was nice to attach an HDMI display to confirm important details that both modules were recognized and get a sense of how the tests were running. After a while, though, the only information that mattered was what was showing up on the FP already. :)

I did wonder whether there any decent descriptions of how to liberate the mobo to perform the upgrade. For others who may similarly be wondering when they start to investigate this as an option, here was my experience...

Unlike my Pro 6, where the mobo faces toward the side panel (the side with the perforation for the CPU fan to draw in air), the 516 has the mobo facing away from the side. So you'll just see metal there after removing the outer case. There are four Phillips/socket-type screws (two on top and two on bottom) in the recessed slots of the sheet metal. Upon removing those four, you can gently swing out the side panel (the mobo is mounted to) from the front panel end. Careful since it's not actually hinged and the are cables attached to it on the inside. I was then able to swing it out /just enough/ to access the DIMM slots and replace the memory without incident.

There may indeed be a better description of how to access the mobo for upgrade, but I wasn't able to find it. :)

So, to everyone that has successfully done this, is there an actual performance increase?

Whether it will have an impact I think depends upon your workload. One telling aspect are the figures Netgear posts comparing the scalability of the 516 and 716 for #users, simultaneous connections, etc. That's great for pure file sharing. But if you plan to run certain add-ons on your NAS, that could easily change your workload profile... perhaps heavier CPU, or pushing lots of large files. Some of these could have an impact on (a) the memory required for processes and (b) the potential benefit of having a larger file buffer held in memory. I run the add-ons: automatic, Transmission, PLEX, DVBLink. The busiest bees, memory wise, are PLEX and DVBLink. And, not surprisingly, these two will also be doing decent I/O to decently large files... depending on simultaneous recordings and multiple playback clients, etc.

So... yes, in my case I noticed a real difference having extra breathing room in RAM. Your workload may differ...