So after ignoring a notice for some time to update the firmware on my ReadyNAS Ultra Plus, I proceeded. Once the update had installed, I was prompted to re-boot. Then the bad news started, the Readiness Ultra never rebooted. No network connectivity indicated by the absence of lights on the Ethernet port. Not seen in Raider, cant access in IE11 can’t ping, no lights on front panel except power, tried bot menu, replaced drives with known older drives, Opened support ticket told them the background a=including the serial number (the unit was registered with them) and they proceeded to in a series of 5 contacts to ask all of the questions I had already answered in my initial contact. REALLY ANNOYING and ultimately their numerous contacts asking questions already answered cost me from obtaining the replacement until Thursday because by the time I had re-answered their already answered questions, did the additional dog tricks it was now too late in the day to ship.
So I had a ReadyNAS Duo and the Ultra Plus and since the Duo is really pretty old and far down the performance curve I decided I would by a new Pro 312 and decommission the Duo. I ordered it and two new Western Digital WD2000FYYZ RE drives. The Netgear compatibility list does not list this drive, however WD claims this drive supports the 312, and NetGear does show the 4TB model of the series disc as supported. I spoke to Netgear pro support and raised this concern and the technician after a long delay stated it was compatible but cautioned me about its longevity. Since the RE series are all made for enterprise class NAS applications with vibration protection and high availability and sharing the same electronics as the 4TB which is listed as supported I dismissed his comment.
Got the New 312 and the discs, struggled a bit with getting the quick slides to work had to resort to YouTube for help as no instructions are provided. Basically the trays ere very hard to get slide to pull out because the little friction ball required considerable effort to release – I found a comment on the Internet that only some are like this… Later the discs were near impossoble to slide out form the trays when I wanted to swap drives. My opinion is their new TRAYS SUCK and now I have one broken tray. Maybe some work OK but mine took major argument to get it to release until the friction ball broke.
Anyway in short order the nas was showing a solid blue power light, Raidar saw it but didn’t show green lights for than of the attributes. The RAIDar’s (4.3.8) setup launched IE11 and I was greeted with a ReadyNAS screen absent any clickable controls. Then I tired Chrome with the same result. Tried lots of options all failed. This mooring I took an older drive (unused) and after a few minutes the power light went sold blue but Raider indicated corrupted root. Did the boot menu thingie with format and the corrupted boot message then disappeared. Still can’t access and went back to the new drives but just installed one after breaking one of the trays because the quick release is neither quick nor easy.
Did the boot menu format(press and hold reset, power on, wait for all lights, release reset, press backup until disk 1 light lit press reset again) on the new drive and again failed to get anywhere with IE11 or Chrome. I did look at the source for the displayed page without any controls and noticed it was apple mobile compatibly. So I tried my iPhone and much to my surprise I had controls not real usable in the iPhone though….This lead me to Safari and I now have an operational Readiness Pro 312. Oh once I cold login to the 312, it informed me a firmware update was available I applied it and now have no problem with IE11 or Chrome or whatever. Don’t really know if the updates had anything to do with it or not but now I can access the new interface - it looks pretty nice and I am hopeful. HOWEVER, WHAT A PAIN IN THE BACKSIDE YOUR ARE NETGEAR - YOU MUST DO BETTER!
Ps. As an aside I tried ReadyCloud and it didn't work blank screen absent of any ReadyNAS function aside from Manage - Discover worked always but then nada with regard to the NAS. I couldn’t even get a new account established. I entered my info, click the button and go into permanent busy mode waiting for the page to refresh. Now after all of the steps outlined above ReadyCloud now works.
