After Netgear in their wisdom released this buggy and obviously untested firmware version for the rn104, I mistakenly clicked on the update button.
The new firmware killed my Samba web server and corrupted the settings.
Non existing Netgear customer support unless they charge to fix their own faulty software!!!
The Netgear Community has been very helpful but ultimally the only way to fix it was to backup the 12TB of HDD that has taken 4 days!!!
I have just finally done the factory reinstall and the HDDS are re-syncing.
WHAT apparently it's going to take 58 HOURS to re-sync!!!!!!!!!!
Probably it's going to take OVER A WEEK to write the data back in.
This new version of firmware seems to be even slower than previous versions and apparently there doesn't seem to be a way to revert to the old version of software.
Netgear, after this is finished where do I send the bill for beta testing your firmware!!!!
Uuh, dear @petercae, there is some room for improvement especially regarding the testing of new OS releases on the RN10X, to phrase it euphemistically.
However, to be fair we need to add, that the number and severity of issues posted follow a certain pattern. Though not having exact statistics I would dare to say, that the weaker and older your nas model is the higher the probability you will be affected by OS release change issues.
...and the RN10X are definitely not the sharpest knifes in the drawer talking about hardware resources.
Yes it might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but was sold to me as a business level machine, the OS updates haven't given it any real features for the last 6 years, only slowed the system and has become more unreliable.
I am sure when I purchased the RN104 and installed the 4 x 3TB HDDs it did't take 50 plus hours to sync 4 emply HDDs!!!!
If Netgear doesn't want to test the new software on older machines it should not realease software updates.
I agree with you that this is one way to disable older machines and get customers to upgrade and/or sell support.
NOT from me, I have various Netgear gateways and routers and I will never buy their products again...
I am sure when I purchased the RN104 and installed the 4 x 3TB HDDs it did't take 50 plus hours to sync 4 emply HDDs!!!!
To clarify this particular point - RAID creates a virtual disk (block storage) underneath the file system. RAID is not aware of the file system, and protects all blocks in the same way.
As a result, RAID volume creation (and sync) always takes the same amount of time - it doesn't matter if the volume is empty or full.
... but was sold to me as a business level machine
Who positioned it this way? The RN100 series was always positioned by Netgear as an entry-level home NAS - replacing the Duo v2 and NV+ v2 (which were also home NAS). It's warranty and tech support reflect that.
I looked at the cost of upgrading to RN314 but for at least AU$550 you get same box and another underpowered CPU with not much more memory.
It looks like it's going to take at least 72 hours to sync so I started to transfer some files and at least it's writing at a respectable speed of 30-40MB/sec.
It failed to install the two versions of Transmission app but installed qBittorrent and iStat fine.
I looked at the cost of upgrading to RN314 but for at least AU$550 you get same box and another underpowered CPU with not much more memory.
The RN314 will deliver ~100 MB/sec on large file transfers (quite a bit faster than the RN104).
The CPU was sized for it's primary purpose (e.g., a file server) - I agree it is undersized for many apps (for instance plex transcoding). It's memory is 2 GB (which is currently enough to run the full suite of OS-6 functions). The RN104 has only 512 MB.
Although the RN314 is still listed on the Netgear website, it an old platform. I don't think it's actually in production anymore - so if you are looking at an upgrade you'd be better off with an RN214 or an RN424.
FWIW - My NAS tend to be in service for a long time, and even if the CPU, etc was equal to a good desktop in the beginning, it never is over the long haul. I came to the conclusion a few years back that using the NAS exclusively as a NAS was my best strategy - not loading it down with a bunch of apps. This is modeled after what enterprises usually do - combining dedicated application servers (often VMs now) with dedicated storage servers.
So now I combine my RN526 with a windows PC that serves as an application server. Plex, Crashplan etc runs on the PC (which has the data volume mapped to a drive letter). I can easily upgrade them independently as performance needs change (or equipment fails), and I don't risk destabilizing the NAS by loading it up with a bunch of third-party packages. So far that new approach is working out well.
Yup, @StephenB , and that's the way it should be, because NAS means "Network Attached Storage" and nothing else. Anybody, who needs an application server should buy one or dedicate that task to a pc like you do. Could not agree more.
Hi @petercae, you wrote "SMB Plus is failing to install." and I can confirm, that the app is not running on my RN104 with the same OS level, too. I have opened a new topic for this and you might want to follow the link below to go there.
