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Hello everyone. I just bought a used ReadyNAS Ultra 6 (RNDU6000-100), loaded with six 2TB drives. I've read that this unit originally came with only 1GB of RAM, but mine has a single 2GB DIMM. I just did a factory reset on it, and it's almost done configuring itself using X-RAID2 with single redundancy. Once that's completed, I will boot it up into test mode and check the HHD's.
My question is, what if any benifit would I see by upgrading the RAM to either 4GB or 8GB? If it's worth doing, then what's the best type of RAM to buy (staying under a $100 price point). And, do I need to use only PC2-6400 RAM, or can I use something like PC2-8500?
I've found the following two options on Amazon, but I'm not sure if they'll work (Netgear itself does a horendous job of providing their customers with technical specs for hardware upgrade options!):
2GB should be more than enough. We do use available memory for caching to improve performance and free it up as needed. Unless you are seeing swap being used the benefits from upgrading the memory would be minimal.
Some advanced users install things like Crashplan or setup VirtualBox (though you would be limited to 32-bit VMs as your CPU doesn't support VT-x) using SSH. Both of these lots of RAM. But for most users who don't use things like those 2GB will be more than enough.
2GB should be more than enough. We do use available memory for caching to improve performance and free it up as needed. Unless you are seeing swap being used the benefits from upgrading the memory would be minimal.
Some advanced users install things like Crashplan or setup VirtualBox (though you would be limited to 32-bit VMs as your CPU doesn't support VT-x) using SSH. Both of these lots of RAM. But for most users who don't use things like those 2GB will be more than enough.
Thank you mdgm! That sounds reassuring (and it's always great to be able to save $$). I am however experiencing a few oddities with my unit, which makes me wonder if the installed (or insufficient ammount of) RAM in it might be the cause.
As I said, I started out it's life (with me) by performing a factory restore on it using the embedded admin webpage (RAIDiator v.4.2.28). I then used the RAIDar utility (v.6.1), to complete the initial setup and then monitor its progress.
It initialized the X-RAID2 array (single redundancy), and then showed drives 1-5 as healthy with a check mark, and it showed drive 6 as resyncing (which is either normal, or leads me to believe that this drive had been newly installed into the unit prior to me receiving it). While that was progressing, the RAIDar utility stated that it was "accessible", but that performance might be effected until the resync was complete.
So I began copying files to it from my Windows 10 Pro PC, using the "Robocopy" command built into MS Windows. I then went to bed. When I awoke this morning, the robocopy process was still chugging along, but when I looked at the ReadyNAS's display, it was completely blank. The power light was illuminated blue, the lights on the ethernet ports were amber and the fans were working, but nothing at all on the display. I then used the "Locate" feature of the RAIDar utility, which made the LED display on the unit blink brightly (which also displayed the current status of the drives and free/total disk space). This continued for about 30 seconds, and then the display again went completely dark. I'm hoping that this is some sort of built-in "sleep" mechanism or something, but I'd love to know for certain.
Anyway, once the intial copy process completes, I will reboot both the ReadyNAS and my PC to see if things return to normal.
Again, thank you very much for offering your advice so quickly!
What you described is normal. When you do a factory reset the disks need to be synced sector by sector to setup the RAID. When you do a factory reset with 6 drives installed we show drive 6 as resyncing.
The display on the unit automatically goes to sleep to extend its life. A momentary press of the power button will turn it back on.
