Time Machine 2tb limit?

NetGear has promised a fix for nearly a year, kind of pathetic that we're still having to keep our fingers crossed for something that should have been disclosed prior to purchase. :-)

msimswil wrote:
I updated my Pro Pioneer to 4.2.9 yesterday. Time Machine allowance is still limited to 2038GB (2TB). :? I would love to be able to expand this, allowing meaningful TM backups of all the stuff in my house. Fingers crossed for 4.3!! --Mike--

centauratlas wrote:
Any news on the "RAIDiator 4.2.6 road map is to support 2TB+ volumes for iSCSI/TimeMachine/etc, I don't have a timeframe for that release yet" from April 2009?

4.2.6 was a ReadyNas 3200 only release. So it may support 2TB+ Time Machine volumes already. I don't know. I'm not sure when NetGear will implement a fix to remove that limit. Apart from iSCSI targets and the Time Machine functionality, the limit shouldn't be a problem for most people.

Personally, I don't backup that much with Time Machine and 2TB is way more than I need at the moment, but I would like to see that restriction lifted. I store most of my very large files on a NAS as its primary storage.

Please, I only want to know if there will be a future fix for that 2 TB limitation for the NV+, or perhaps they have stopped to update the firmware of that machine.

Can someone at ReadyNas be so kind to answer something to their customers?

Yes, unless you are using iSCSI or TM it shouldn't be a problem, but when we purchased it they weren't disclosing the limit and by the time they did in April of 2009 it was too late to return it. And they've been promising a fix since.

It is completely unprofessional of any company to do that and if they want to be taken seriously they need to commit and then follow through.

mdgm wrote:

centauratlas wrote: Any news on the "RAIDiator 4.2.6 road map is to support 2TB+ volumes for iSCSI/TimeMachine/etc, I don't have a timeframe for that release yet" from April 2009? 4.2.6 was a ReadyNas 3200 only release. So it may support 2TB+ Time Machine volumes already. I don't know. I'm not sure when NetGear will implement a fix to remove that limit. Apart from iSCSI targets and the Time Machine functionality, the limit shouldn't be a problem for most people. Personally, I don't backup that much with Time Machine and 2TB is way more than I need at the moment, but I would like to see that restriction lifted. I store most of my very large files on a NAS as its primary storage.

nathan-opscode wrote:
So yeah, I now have 6 of my employees setup with private 400G shares they're each using for Time Machine backups. It's a manual process to get setup and required the root-ssh plugin to get figured out, but shouldn't be too hard to wrap in a tiny shell script. This should allow me to have each employee have a private 400G TM, and use up all 7T in our ReadyNAS when we grow to 14 users ;-)

Since I'm finding myself in a similar position, I'm curious: how did you create each of those private shares?
Did you use the approach described in "Making Time Machine work with the ReadyNAS"? ( http://www.readynas.com/?p=253)
Since you mention root-ssh, I assume you did something else?

RAIDiator x86 4.2.10 Beta makes some changes:

yoh-dah wrote:

Enhancements: 1. [T40] Default file system for all x86 devices is now Ext4. If you factory default the ReadyNAS with 4.2.10, you will get the Ext4 with support for files as large as 16TB on 64-bit ReadyNAS systems (Pro, 3100, 3200, 4200). If you upgrade from Ext3, you’ll still be limited to 2TB. We are looking at coming out with an add-on that allows you to convert your Ext3 file system to Ext4. 4. [T40] Time Machine limit is now 4TB with Ext4 on 64-bit systems (2TB otherwise).

Hi,
I am curious as to why Time Machine is limited to 4TB on Ext4 now instead of 16TB files that Ext4 should support. Anyone know?

It is really disappointing that Netgear is not supporting the full size of the NAS after more than a year. Backing up a 4 x 2TB RAID 5 (or whatever) Mac via Time Machine still won't work with ReadyNAS (although Drobo handles it fine).

Thanks

Hi,
I'm considering turning on Time Machine support in the ReadyNAS, setting it to the maximum size it allows (4085 GB), creating a sparsebundle image larger than that with htutil and then copying it over to the ReadyNAS.

I know that sparsebundle images can be created with htutil well above the TB range, into the peta and exa-byte ranges (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/ ... til.1.html) so it is not an issue with sparsebundles. Likewise, I know that TimeMachine can backup to volumes larger than 4TB (e.g. 8 bay Drobo with 2 TB drives works fine).

So, this is again an issue with the ReadyNAS Pro.

Anyone see any issues with creating a backup this way or have a better solution?

e.g. should I just turn off the ReadyNAS support, create the sparse bundle there and use it that way?

Thanks for any insight.

Well, replacing the ReadyNAS Pro time machine files with a new sparsebundle that was larger didn't help. Still limited to 4.38TB on the ReadyNAS Pro. I am not sure what the issue is with the ReadyNAS Pro and Time Machine with large backups, but it certainly hasn't been living up to its billings since it was released.

Any suggestions on just using a sparsebundle on the ReadyNAS and NOT using the built-in support for TimeMachine?

I am not sure if that would work or not, but am looking for a solution... ;-)

Check out: http://www.readynas.com/?p=253

I have 3 mac's all running this way with custom-sized sparsebundles and custom permissions. Not over 2 or 4TB, but I have read of at least one user successfully doing just that by this same method.

Note: If you're using Snow Leopard, take care regarding the sparsebundle naming convention as it appears to have changed (no ethernet address in the name)