Just want to state first that the model I have isn't with 500GB Desktop drives it actually came with 4x1TB enterprise drives. Now that is out of the way, I wanted to know how can I find out the official MAX support drive that this unit will accept. I want to look throught he release notes for the drives firmware updates but I can't find them.
Do they still exist? I thought I saw a release showing Maximum of 4TB drives available.
Thanks all.
Model: ReadyNASRNRX4450v2|ReadyNAS 2100 2TB (4 x 500GB Desktop)
The 2100 v1 supports volumes up to 16TB in capacity. You can have multiple volumes though.
The 2100 v2 supports larger volumes. The v2 can run OS6 (though not supported) which has better support for high capacity disks. Upgrading to OS6 does require a factory reset (wipes all data, settings, everything) however.
If you have the v2 it'll be obvious looking at RAIDar or at Frontview.
Either way you may be able to use larger disks than 4TB, but some high capacity disks might not fit in the disk trays properly with the changes in positions of screw holes.
The NAS you have is also called the 2100v2. It runs 4.2.x firmware, correct?
The HCL still exists, but hasn't been updated by Netgear in a very long time - so it is not useful any more. I'd suggest enterprise class (either WDC Gold or the Seagate equivalent).
The hard drive limit is similar to the ReadyNAS pro. You can certainly go to 4TB, but if you much higher you will run into the expansion limits of OS 4.2. That is, you can't expand a volume more than 16 TiB total size and you can't expand it more than 8 TiB from it's starting point.
You can overcome these limits if you convert the firmware to OS6 - that is not supported by Netgear, but many people have done it. Another benefit of OS6 is that it supports SMB3 - your NAS uses SMB1, which is being deprecated. Note that the 2100v1 cannot be converted to OS6 - only the 2100v2 can be.
Disks larger than 4 TB often use alternative mounting points - which won't all line up with the mounting holes in your disk trays. So you might want to research that before you upgrade.
Yes the NAS is currently on 4.2.19 if im not mistaken and I will update the firmware to the latest it supports. Originally I had the 4TB in the NAS and I already upgraded to a total of 8TB.
If I upgrade to 4x4TB will I have to wipe the data (factory reset) in order to actually get a 12TB of usuable storage? That i can't afford to do and have no means of offsetting the data to accomplish this.
Originally I had the 4TB in the NAS and I already upgraded to a total of 8TB.
If I upgrade to 4x4TB will I have to wipe the data (factory reset) in order to actually get a 12TB of usuable storage?
If you mean you started with a 4 TB volume size ("usable storage") then you can grow to 4x4TB.
If you mean that you started with 4x1TB (3 TB volume size), then the expansion will fail (it's about 200 GB over the 8 TiB growth limit). From a 4x1TB XRAID starting point you can go to 3x4TB+3TB (11 TB volume size).
That i can't afford to do and have no means of offsetting the data to accomplish this.
You have an 6 TB volume size now, correct? Two 4TB USB drives would cost you about $240 USD. I recommend getting those two drives now, and slowing down the expansion.
For instance, 4x4TB would cost you about 680 USB (for 4 TB WD gold disks). Get two 4 TB gold disks and the two 4TB USB drives in the first phase instead (costing $580). That gives you a backup capability and a volume size of 8 TB now. With a backup, you can do the factory reset now with 2x4TB+2x2TB in place, and that will let you expand the volume to the max 16 TB in the future.
RAID isn't enough to keep your data safe, especially if you are upgrading or replacing disks in the array.
I agree that RAID isn't anywhere near enough but for now its a temp solution until a new unit is purchased which most likely isn't until next year.
We have already reached the conclusion of buying 4x4TB which would cost about $1000 CAD but I may just have to make it 5 to have a spare and off set the data temporarily to do the factory reset.
We were looking at WD RED 7200RPM Drives instead of the gold.
We were looking at WD RED 7200RPM Drives instead of the gold.
I think you mean Red Pro. There are no 7200 rpm drives in the WD Red line.
The prices I see for the 4 TB Red Pro (WD4002FFWX) and the 4 TB gold (WD4002FYYZ) are the same - within 2 USD on Amazon on the moment. The specs are also nearly identical. Either drive should perform well.
We have already reached the conclusion of buying 4x4TB which would cost about $1000 CAD but I may just have to make it 5 to have a spare and off set the data temporarily to do the factory reset.
That would do it too - backing up to two of the 5 drives, and then doing a factory install with 3x4TB in place. You'll be able to restore to the resulting 8 TB data volume, and then add the 4th drive to get to 12 TB.
No. You'd need 4 drives for dual redundancy (RAID-6). But normal XRAID can start with one drive. The second drive added will convert the array to RAID-1, the third will convert to RAID-5. Those OS 4.2 expansion limits get in the way with larger disks though. Adding the last disk will fail if you start with 1 drive (exceeding the 8 TiB growth limit).
With 3x4TB as the starting point, XRAID give you an 8 TB volume (~7.2 TiB), and an expansion ceiling of about 15.2 TiB - close enough to the 16 TiB max to not worry about it. You could for instance upgrade 2 disks to 8 TB later on, to get a 16 TB volume.
