After migrating my data to a Synology DS720+: 2 x Seagate IronWolf Pro 4TB
I finally upgraded my ReadyNAS Ultra 2 Plus: 2 x WesternDigital Green 2TB (dated 30 may 2012). I brought it up to OS 6.10.7 (plus BIOS update). I also upgraded RAM too 2GB (can confirm that the module must have 4 chips per side. 8 will not work). The system is a decade old but has been such a reliable machine I have to put it to some use. After the OS update it feels like a new and modern system. Curiously, there is no way to view the memory without enabling sshd and logging in with a shell?
So what to do with it (home use)??
One idea: To use it for incremental backups of the Synology NAS (and for which I also got a Seagate 4TB external USB drive for periodic cold full backups). I had considered buying new 4TB disks for the ReadyNAS but that significantly increases my investment. I only went to 4TB on Synology build for future planning. My original data is ~ 1.2TB so I can still back that up to the RN 2TB array for a while and deal with that problem if it ever comes up. Additional incremental backups are really just a luxury but you never know and I am honestly lazy about running full backups.
Any other usage ideas? I have no reason to believe it won't run for years more. Less confident in the discs but whatever. I just am not comfortable using it for critical stuff any longer. I am also open to installing a different OS, but that may be tricky with this headless unit.
AS long as it is just true backups (not archival data removed from the main NAS), you could use a JBOD volume instead of RAID to gain more space. Loss of just one drive would cause you to lose everything, but what's the chance that happens when something else happens to the main NAS? Two individual volumes would mean you'd only lose half the data with a drive failure, but then you'd have to manually balance between them.
Loss of just one drive would cause you to lose everything, but what's the chance that happens when something else happens to the main NAS?
Agreed, it is likely slight. Power surge during a backup is one possibility I guess.
Though I went with two volumes on my RN202 (which is also a pure backup). One reason is ease of recovery if it were needed. The disks I chose were large enough that needing to rebalance the share allocation shouldn't be needed very often (so far hasn't been needed at all).
Well I keep my main NAS on a UPS (not enough plugs for this one too). I'm fine using it as a incremental hot backup (but it is honestly overkill).
I'm just not totally clear on Netgear's position with these storage products. Are they out of the market or what? I had read some threads here but I am less clear. This latest os update 6.10.7 is fairly recent. If they are going to keep releasing those I am happy, though I'm less inclined to use any of the apps (I run plex on a separate computer) if they are just going to be abandoned. But I ran it with RAIDiator 4.2.31 for years w/o incident. It was just serving files and not Internet facing. As a dedicated backup server I guess I could even give it it's own vlan or something.
But I know it's more capable. And (w/ memory upgrade) the specs aren't even that bad by today's NAS standards. That's why I even considered continuing it as my main NAS still if I replaced the disks (although the existing ones pass all tests). With RAID 1 even if the mobo melted, the disks should still be readable from any machine.
While some have reported Netgear reps saying Netgear has exited the market, there has been no formal announcement. But I've also seen no formal denial. They have definitely suspended production and OS upgrades are minimal security ones. My conclusion is that they probably have quietly exited the market with COVID supply chain issues pushing them in that direction.
Yes, any READYNAS can read the drives if the unit fails, but you would be looking at a used unit. There are other options, including a Linux machine with MDADM and BTRFS installed. There are even beta versions of MDADM and BTRFS for Windows that may work, but I've not seen any experiments anyone has run, or run any myself (though it's on my list).
