when are drives needed for a ReadyNAS NV+?

The unit will boot since it has flash memory but will report no drives detected, you are not going to be able to install the NAS.

Yes, the entire OS will be saved on the drives.

The drive will be formatted by the NAS and delete its contents.

mrjohnsmithe wrote:
1. do i need drives installed to boot the unit?

The NAS will boot up without drives and that is an indication that the NAS chassis is fine (a way of troubleshooting the NAS chassis). For you to be able to initially set up and use the NAS, there should be drive/s inside it.

mrjohnsmithe wrote:
2. do i need drives installed to a usb update to the firmware?

Do you mean to update the firmware of the NAS? If yes, it is required to have drives installed. Also, drives should be installed if ever you will perform USB boot on it.

mrjohnsmithe wrote:
3. is the unit smart enough that if it doesn't like the format (e.g. NTFS or FAT32) that it will recognize and still boot or do the drives have to be a specific format?

I use drives that are on NTFS format. Some users have their drives on EXT3 or EXT4. Also, consider checking the list of compatible drives for the NV+v1 or v2 here: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20641

Ixa wrote:
mrjohnsmithe wrote: 1. do i need drives installed to boot the unit? The NAS will boot up without drives and that is an indication that the NAS chassis is fine (a way of troubleshooting the NAS chassis). For you to be able to initially set up and use the NAS, there should be drive/s inside it.

Normally the OS is installed on the disks. So it isn't able to boot up normally. The program in the flash will start, and detect no disks. RAIDar will show you that, it should also appear on the LCD panel.

You can run some diags - similar to starting up a PC w/o disks. The bios will run, but that's all.

StephenB wrote:

Ixa wrote: mrjohnsmithe wrote: 1. do i need drives installed to boot the unit? The NAS will boot up without drives and that is an indication that the NAS chassis is fine (a way of troubleshooting the NAS chassis). For you to be able to initially set up and use the NAS, there should be drive/s inside it. Normally the OS is installed on the disks. So it isn't able to boot up normally. The program in the flash will start, and detect no disks. RAIDar will show you that, it should also appear on the LCD panel. You can run some diags - similar to starting up a PC w/o disks. The bios will run, but that's all.

ah. that's good to know. i will try to reinstall the OS and see how that works.

edit: i tried to do a reinstall and a factory reset, then it says it wants to connect to RaidAR, it's connected to my desktkop but RaidAR says it cannot connect to the device even though it sees the unit and knows i only have one drive installed.
huh?....

The NAS is directly connected to your desktop?

If so, the NAS will be using IP address 192.168.168.168. If that's the address you are seeing then you either need to assign a static address to the PC in the same range (192.168.168.x).

Or connect the NAS and PC to the router - in which case the NAS will gets its address via DHCP (and you should be able to reach it).