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Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

miogpsrocks
Tutor

What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

 

What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?  I think it uses XRAID 2( not 1). 

 

I did a superficial search and I think I saw something about a 16GB volume limit. Is that true? If so then 3GB is the largest in a RAID 5 configuration. 

 

RAID system has no data on it and I am buying the drives now so its not an expansion issue. 

 

If 16GB is the largest volume, then can you split it into 2 volumes with both being under 16GB? 

 

Thanks. 

 

 

Model: RNDP600E |ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition|EOL
Message 1 of 12
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

You mean 16TB not 16GB.

 

You can do a factory reset with equal capacity disks in place and get a larger volume.

 

You can also have multiple volumes each under 16TB.


OS6 doesn't have the expansion limits. So you could consider running that though doing so is not supported.

Message 2 of 12
miogpsrocks
Tutor

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

 

Yes, I mean 16TB not GB. 

 

Is this a real limit or does this not apply if you are formatting it from scratch with equal drives? I want to have 1 big volume if possible. 

 

So let's say I have 6 X 4TB hard drives in RAID 5 configuration. Will I end up with something around 20TB? 

 

 

Message 3 of 12
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?


@miogpsrocks wrote:

Yes, I mean 16TB not GB. 

 

Is this a real limit or does this not apply if you are formatting it from scratch with equal drives? I want to have 1 big volume if possible. 

 

So let's say I have 6 X 4TB hard drives in RAID 5 configuration. Will I end up with something around 20TB? 


 

It doesn't apply when creating a volume with equal capacity disks. It only affects expansion. Note OS6 is not affected by the expansion limit, so if you'd like to expand the volume in the future then that may be worth considering even though not supported.

 

Yes you'd get a volume that's about 18TiB. 20 * 1000^4 / 1024^4 = 18.2 (note this calculations ignores overheads, root volume, swap etc.). We use base 2 whereas disk manufacturers use base 10. So we may get a smaller number but it's still the same amount of space.

 

Users have used much higher capacity disks than 4TB ones.

Message 4 of 12
miogpsrocks
Tutor

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

How much larger HD  have  people put in this system? 

 

Like 8TB drives? 

 

Thanks. 

Message 5 of 12
StephenB
Guru

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?


@miogpsrocks wrote:

How much larger HD  have  people put in this system? 

 

As far as I can see from posts here, almost all users going above 4 TB drives are choosing to switch to OS 6.  The expansion limitations of the OS 4.2 XRAID implementation are too limiting when you have large drives.  

 

With OS6 running on the Pro, several posters have used 8 TB drives.  I don't recall 10 TB off hand, but there's no technical reason it wouldn't work.

Message 6 of 12
miogpsrocks
Tutor

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?


@StephenB wrote:

@miogpsrocks wrote:

How much larger HD  have  people put in this system? 

 

As far as I can see from posts here, almost all users going above 4 TB drives are choosing to switch to OS 6.  The expansion limitations of the OS 4.2 XRAID implementation are too limiting when you have large drives.  

 

With OS6 running on the Pro, several posters have used 8 TB drives.  I don't recall 10 TB off hand, but there's no technical reason it wouldn't work.


 

When you say " switch to OS6" do you mean buy a new readynas System that has OS6 on it or do you mean upgrade the software from XRAID2 to OS6? 

 

If you mean the second one, I was completely unaware that it was possible to load different software on the readynas than was already there. How would I go about doing that? 

 

Thanks. 

Message 7 of 12
TeknoJnky
Hero

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

Well you could do either;

 

a) buy a new readynas with OS6 already installed

 

b) convert your legacy readynas to OS6, *NOTE* this requires a factory default, so you would need to completely back up all data, convert your readynas, then restore your data and and reinstall/reconfigure any apps you have loaded to the readynas.

 

There is an old thread with the info on how to upgrade your old nas to OS6, I saw it recently but can't find it at the moment, hopefully someone will post it if they have it or you can search around, or I will update post if I can find it.

 

 here is the thread with necessary links @ https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-in-Business/OS6-upgrade-question-on-legacy-Pro-6/m-p/97897...

 

again, converting from raidator 4 to OS 6 requires destroying any existing data, so back up everything and make sure you double check because once you lose the originals, they are gone baby gone.

 

Message 8 of 12
miogpsrocks
Tutor

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?


@TeknoJnky wrote:

Well you could do either;

 

a) buy a new readynas with OS6 already installed

 

b) convert your legacy readynas to OS6, *NOTE* this requires a factory default, so you would need to completely back up all data, convert your readynas, then restore your data and and reinstall/reconfigure any apps you have loaded to the readynas.

 

There is an old thread with the info on how to upgrade your old nas to OS6, I saw it recently but can't find it at the moment, hopefully someone will post it if they have it or you can search around, or I will update post if I can find it.

 

@ here is the thread with necessary links @ https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-in-Business/OS6-upgrade-question-on-legacy-Pro-6/m-p/97897...

 

again, converting from raidator 4 to OS 6 requires destroying any existing data, so back up everything and make sure you double check because once you lose the originals, they are gone baby gone.

 


Only ones that are using XRAID2 right? The XRAID 1 are still stuck on the firmware? 

Message 9 of 12
TeknoJnky
Hero

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

 

Well, you must have an x86 device for the os6 upgrade, which a pro pioneer is.

 

Message 10 of 12
StephenB
Guru

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?


@TeknoJnky wrote:

 

Well, you must have an x86 device for the os6 upgrade, which a pro pioneer is.

 


a 64 bit x86 device - which a pro pioneer is.

 

The NVX is a 32 bit x86 ReadyNAS, and it cannot be upgraded to OS6.

 

 

RAID format isn't relevant, because the disks are completely wiped and reformatted as part of the conversion.

Message 11 of 12
bedlam1
Prodigy

Re: What is the largest hard drive I can put in a Netgear ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition?

Here is the info on migrating to OS6, it relates to an Ultra 4 but is equally relevant to the Pro Pioneer

 

@NASguru posted this

All, I just wanted to report back that I followed through with the steps and was able to successfully upgrade my Ultra 4 to OS6.  As instructed, I first update my BIOS using the following link http://www.readynas.com/download/addons/x86/4.2/BIOS_Update_Package_0.5-x86.bin  In case anyone missed it, that is done using the ADD-ON tab and NOT the firmware tab.  It does require a reboot to become effective though.  After that, I confirmed my before/after BIOS just to make sure:

 

Old BIOS:

09/20/2010 ReadyNAS-NVX-V2 V1.9

 

New BIOS:

08/23/2011 ReadyNAS-NVX-V2 V1.10

 

I then followed the instructions posted by @StephenB 

 

Basic instructions are
BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
Download PREP4TOR6_0.1-x86.bin
Upload it using the ReadyNAS web gui firmware update, but do not reboot afterwards (avoids the need to do manual factory resets)
Download R4toR6_latest.bin
Upload it using the ReadyNAS web gui firmware update
After you upload the addon/firmware and reboot, it will update the firmware and start a factory default.
As you can see it does a factory default, so all data on the NAS will be lost.

 

I should mention that after uploading the R4toR6 it literally jumps you to the system/shutdown tab where you have to select shutdown/reboot and hit apply to complete the upgrade.  I also watched the LCD screen on the front and within the first 10-20 seconds it showed ERR: Could not properly extract. It then went to Booting with a percentage followed by a bar, rebooted again showed Factory Rest and then Installing FW X-RAID2 Mode.  It then showed Booting...XX% bar graph one more time before showing ReadyNAS Ultra 4 6.6.0 and entering the Rsync data setting.

 

Model: ReadyNAS RNDP4000|ReadyNAS Pro 4 Chassis only
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