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Forum Discussion
Upgrade 1, upgrade all, or junk it
I have a less than two-year old ReadyNAS (516) with four 4TB drives and all is well. I also have a seven-year old ReadyNAS ProBusiness Edition. I have been using the older model to back up the newer one daily.
The old unit has five 3TB drives (all from the approved list and all with 30,000 hours to 33,000 hours). I got concerned when the unit began spinning its fan fast on occasion, but the temperatures seemed OK and it’s been doing this for many months. So, I decided that I’d just not worry about it.
A year or two ago, one of the drives suddenly showed a Reallocated Sector Count of 4. Nothing has changed since then so I again decided not to worry about it – until today when I got a warning that the Reallocated Sector Count went from 4 up to 5. The warning included the message that I should be prepared to replace that drive soon.
Now, I realize that any computer that gets 7 or 8 years of 24/7 use is pretty amazing and I know I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of the unit. I also know that Netgear is no longer updating its OS (RAIDiator 4.2.28). Yet, I’d prefer not to purchase another unit at this time.
So, my questions have to do with what to do now and naturally the odds of its continued life. (The other four drives have 0 reallocated sectors.)
1. Is it worth swapping out the one drive for another 3TB one?
2. Would it be smarter to replace all of the drives, possibly with four 4TB ones?
3. Or, should I not even bother to throw more money at the unit, feel grateful that it’s been a workhorse for all these years, and look for a new unit?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions you offer.
24 Replies
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- You may not need to yet. The count is pretty low and not climbing rapidly.
- This is a backup unit. You can replace all the disks if you want, but I don't think you need to. Though a conservative approach would be to replace all the disks considering their age.
- We'd love it if you got a new unit, but I don't think you need to yet. Using the Pro as a backup unit I'd probably run it till it dies at this stage. It could be that a fan in it needs replacing, but replacing it would be at your own risk. Having said that having two units running the same OS and both supported to run that OS would have its advantages. Your patience, in waiting rather than just replacing the unit unnecessarily months ago may have already paid off. We have just released two new models, namely the RN526X and RN626X which both have two 10GBASE-T ports. I would look into those if you decide to get a new unit, or perhaps another RN516.
We expect to release RAIDiator-x86 4.2.30 soon with some security fixes.
Thank you for your insight. You have hit upon all of my concerns. I know that the sector count is not rising rapidly, but it's still a little unsettling. Yet, it is a backup unit.
The fact that you are releasing a new version of the OS is certainly encouraging.
I saw the promo on your new units and the specs are impressive. One is not in the budget at this time, but it's good to see Netgear continuing to develop these kinds of storage products. Plus, with Amazon's 1 or 2 day shipping, should the drive fail, I can replace it when I need to with little down time.
So, again, thank you for your rapid and helpful reply.
Why don't you upgrade the Pro to OS6, which I assume is running on your 516 ?
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