Maximum Storage by Disk and Total Unit Capacity

[DJOROD]

Hi,

I am a proud owner of a RNDU4000 (ReadyNAS Ultra 4 [X-RAID2]) that I've been using, going on 10 years now. I'm currently running RAIDar Utility Version 6.4.0 and Firmware/RAIDiator 4.2.31 with three disks (two 3TB and one 2TB) and 1024 MB of DDR2 RAM. I am wanting to upgrade each drive to 4TB (or possibly 6TB) but given this NAS's age, I don't know if it would support it. Can someone help?

Many Thanks in Advance!

DJOROD

[StephenB]

There are two expansion limits in the 4.2 firmware

• a volume can't expand over 16 TiB
• a volume can't expand more than 8 TiB from it's initial size.

So in the case of a 4-bay ultra, the first limit means that you can expand to 4x4 TB (12 TB volume) or even 4x5TB (15 TB volume).  4x6TB exceeds the 16 TiB ceiling, but 3x6TB+4TB would work.

The second limit might also apply, and if it does you'll need to do a factory reset with all disks in place. 

You can convert your NAS to run OS 6 - which doesn't have these expansion limits.  That process isn't supported by Netgear, but many have done it.  It does require a factory reset, but you are facing that possibility already.  In addition to eliminating the expansion limits, you'd also get new features - including support for SMB 3.0, which is helpful since Microsoft is deprecating the SMB 1.0 protocol that your ultra uses.

[DJOROD]

Hi Stephanie,

Thanks for your prompt reply on this. Converting my NAS to run OS 6 sounds very enticing but I fear that in doing so, this procedure could also "brick" the appliance. Would I be at risk of this?

[StephenB]

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@DJOROD wrote:

Converting my NAS to run OS 6 sounds very enticing but I fear that in doing so, this procedure could also "brick" the appliance. Would I be at risk of this?

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I haven't seen any posts from Ultra owners reporting a bricked NAS when doing the conversion.  There are a couple of OS 4.2.x NAS models that use 32 bit processors, and they can be bricked - but the Ultra is a 64 bit platform.

There are also a couple of folks who found that the upgrade resulted in the NAS no longer knowing it's serial number.  That creates issues connecting to ReadyCloud.  Netgear mods here (for example @JohnCM_S ) have solved that problem for a couple of folks.

As I said, it is not supported by Netgear - and you won't be able to get paid Netgear support if you switch.  But overall, people doing this conversion have reported success.  

[DJOROD]

Excellent!!! Thank you so much for you all of your help and input. I'll add this to my "To-Do" list 😃

Very much appreciated!!!

[Sandshark]

You may also want to upgrade to at least 2GB of RAM for OS6.  All OS6 based platforms save the very earliest ARM based ones have at least 2GB.

[DJOROD]

Hi, funny you mentioned this. I was about to inquire about that as well. I will need to research to see what RAM (compatability, corect specs, etc) I need in order to get it. Thx for th ereply SandSharkMaster