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Forum Discussion
Upgrade Readynas Pro 6
I'm a happy owner of a newly aquired elderly ReadyNAS Pro 6 running lates OS 6.10.3 in otherwise stock configuration: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @1.80GH 1 GB Installed Memory BIOS 08/20/20...
Update on my upgrade project:
RAM:
Original 1GB RAM now upgraded to 4GB. Easy job, pull out the old stick, and install the two new. Found 2x2GB Crucial second hand ones for some 15 EUR. Works nicely, no issues.
CPU:
Today I finally got the "new" Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 SLGTD 3.06GHz, again a second hand purchase for some 15 EUR. Removing the heat sink was easy and after removing the original Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @1.80GH I installed the new E7600 - and put all together again. Turned power on - machine tunrned on with fans full speed and Readynas showed in the display, and then - nothing else happende. No boot, just display and and fans on. After leaving it like that for 3-4 min I turned it off being pretty upset. I decided to try one more time before reverting to the original processor, but to my big surprice it turned, and booted normally, what a relief. It's been running with no issues for 3 hours now, CPU temp around 40 deg C. It feels much snappier so upgrade was an improvement.
That e7600 should definitely feel snappier--it's almost literally twice as fast as the e2160:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Pentium-E2160-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E7600/1134vs948
It will be interesting if the combination of ram and processor improves the real-world transfer speeds. :)
SamirD wrote:
That e7600 should definitely feel snappier--it's almost literally twice as fast as the e2160:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Pentium-E2160-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E7600/1134vs948
It will be interesting if the combination of ram and processor improves the real-world transfer speeds. :)
OS-6 definitely uses more memory than OS 4.2 did - and currently shipping OS-6 ReadyNAS all have have at lease 2 GB of RAM. So I definitely recommend increasing RAM in legacy NAS running OS-6.
As far as the CPU goes, it depends on how you use the NAS.
A stock Pro-6 running 4.2.x will already saturate a gigabit connection when doing sequential file transfers. Other loads won't do that, but with those loads the speed will be limited by the disks and the memory caching - not by the CPU. That won't change with OS-6. So I don't think the CPU upgrade will increase transfer speeds unless you are using SMB 3 with transport encryption.
But if you are using transport encryption, then the faster CPU likely will make a difference, since I don't think the stock CPU has AES acceleration. And of course if you are running apps (for instance plex), then the faster CPU will matter.
As far as fans go, I am running a Noctua NF-S12A FLX in my own Pro-6 (still running OS 4.2, with the stock CPU, but with 8 GB of RAM. That is working well - but the NAS is in my basement, and I don't need silent operation. I swapped it because it sounded like the bearings in the stock fan sounded like they were beginning to go.
FWIW, my own Pro-6 is used as a backup NAS. SMB is disabled, and it runs rsync backup jobs on a power schedule. I plan to keep it on OS 4.2 until I need to expand the volume (it is at the expansion ceilings for OS 4.2).
Thank you for the insights. AES isn't available in any of the lga775 processors afaik, so a processor upgrade won't help with that.
Yep, a faster processor will definitely speed up things, but since there are no dedicated AES instructions in the cpu, the software can't take advantage of that (if it is even written for that).
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