I'm using one of these NAS units for home use. I've had it about 24 months. It's been solid for uptime and performance.
HOWEVER
I'm about to give up and replace it. In addition to NAS storage, I'm using it for Plex, Unifi Controller, and half a dozen other things. The underlying Readynas Linux distro is Debian Jessie (8.x). Long term support for Jessie expired in June of 2020. Jessie is now classified as "oldoldstable" and is about to be bumped to "obsolete" status. As a result, *everything* I do is painful. From transcoding commands to containers to cloud replication CLI.
SO
Has anyone seen any indication that Netgear is going to continue the Readynas lineup? ALSO Has anyone just gone ahead and run a distro upgrade? I'm considering using this as a regular server, since the hardware is fine. I'd likely lose the Netgear GUI, etc., but at least it would still have a life as a Debian box in my IT rack.
The underlying Readynas Linux distro is Debian Jessie (8.x). Long term support for Jessie expired in June of 2020. Jessie is now classified as "oldoldstable" and is about to be bumped to "obsolete" status. As a result, *everything* I do is painful. From transcoding commands to containers to cloud replication CLI.
Jessie will have ELTS (Extended Long Term Support) till about June 2022. Other fixes can be backported as required.
Having said that it would be nice for there to be a move to a newer Debian distro.
Has anyone just gone ahead and run a distro upgrade? I'm considering using this as a regular server, since the hardware is fine. I'd likely lose the Netgear GUI, etc., but at least it would still have a life as a Debian box in my IT rack.
Before trying anything like that ensure your backup is up to date.
That would break some things like the management service, I think. If you really want to run a newer distro it would be better to install vanilla Debian or other Linux and put the config on for things like fan control. This is easier to do with a model that has a HDMI port, but it can be done with other models as well.
But seriously, at this point it should be blindingly obvious that this is the end of the line for all current ReadyNAS devices. There is no magical, secret alpha of ReadyNAS OS 7 in the works - certainly not for exisiting devices.
Development of both hard- and software has clearly been halted, even before the pandemic.
The most likely explanation is, that Netgear has simply left the NAS market.
Far less likely, but possible, would be an eventual rebrand and relaunch.
Either way, there is effectively zero hope that any existing ReadyNAS device will benefit from whatever is on the horizon.
But seriously, at this point it should be blindingly obvious that this is the end of the line for all current ReadyNAS devices. There is no magical, secret alpha of ReadyNAS OS 7 in the works - certainly not for exisiting devices.
Development of both hard- and software has clearly been halted, even before the pandemic.
The most likely explanation is, that Netgear has simply left the NAS market.
Far less likely, but possible, would be an eventual rebrand and relaunch.
Either way, there is effectively zero hope that any existing ReadyNAS device will benefit from whatever is on the horizon.
This is it, there will be no more.
I agree..
For example if you get a look on the current Netgear website, in the Home Products there is no mention to NAS solutions...
Only below the Business Products, definetely focused only on the high performance versions.
Earlier this year, it was indicated to me that the ReadyNAS line is EOL. When I pressed for a definitive answer, it was met with silence. Which I think is as definitive an answer as any.
6.10.4 was released yesterday. As long as we keep getting incremental bugfixes and security patches, I'll be okay, though not exactly thrilled. My 626 with 2x 10GbE and 64GB RAM should see me through for a few more years. But it's not a great feeling knowing that your current hardware path is a dead end. And if Plex support drops, then it's going to be an expensive disappointment.
I would hope that they unlock the bootloader if they are going to deprecate the operating system. The hardware is more than sufficient to run several other dedicated storage operating systems. I've read several accounts of people being able to get their unlocked and run regular Linux or BSD based options. I just don't care to muck with it, which is why I sold mine.
Without any notification, no Beta, no release info, no marketing ... appears the team remaining lost any interrest in the ReadyNAS product line. Dead indeed.
It is typical for Netgear to release an update in that way first before adding it to the update servers and making a more public announcment, so I don't see how them continuing that practice confirms or denies anything.
@Sandshark Beta builds were made accessible long before, for many major and minor releases, here in the RN Beta Community section on select accounts, on Centercode. Since the team in ***** (outsourcing?) was substituted by the team from mainland China (Netgear's own resources?) formerly in charge for the (****censored****) business routers ... that's all I can observe.
Well no one from netgear has officially come out and confirmed or denied anything, it’s the silents that gets me, we haven’t heard a thing from anyone? You know what they say? Silents speaks louder than words... if anyone officially from netgear can add to the discussion as to what’s going on with readynas please add to the discussion
I guess without overhaul the OS can only be taken so far but this will cost time and money to develop and in this climate with covid I just can't see anything happening, at least not yet. Even router "public" firmware releases and firmware development has slowed, at least for now.
I think as far as debian goes, it will always be preferred to use mature LTS distros though I agree 8.x is aging.
The thing is life is moving towards storage as a service (Cloud) so if this is also Netgears plan moving forward then they are likely to reduce support for us end users and concentrate more on enterprise in terms of products.
Netgear may even offer it themselves down the line, but of course it does not help us that want to keep our storage local and run various services on our NAS boxes.
I have 2 ReadyNAS boxes, one Intel based and the other ARM and at the moment I am happy with the rate of updates and stablity of the firmware.
Regarding PLEX, they may drop ARM support but the deb (x86) support I would say is likely to remain.
My 2012 Samsung smart TV only got deprecated in Sept 2020 by PLEX. Unfortunate it now ceases to function but I have other means of using the PLEX App on the TV.
I guess we just have to watch this space and everything else is based on assumption on what we see going on.
This is why I made the migration to TrueNas thread, if they aren't going to support the current operating system's life or move us on to another Netgear designed operating system for readynas then the right thing to do, is to move us on to a free based solution and give us all the keys to allow that to happen. #TrueNas
But your premise in that other post, that Netgear has announced that they will not support some OS6 units and will soon do the same for others, has no basis in any actual Netgear announcement. You have mis-interpreted that they now list some units as "end of life".
@SignedAdam Proposing swapping to oddball ZFS distributions is ignorant nonsense. If you have a significant ReadyOS footprint, you should already be planning to move. There's nothing special about the hardware. Why would you copy all the data off, re-image it, and move the data back? You'd be better off abandoning it entirely.
In terms of upgrade pathway, there are no btrfs-based Bebian successors - Open Media Vault doesn't support btrfs, Rockstor does but it is CentOS based, Openfiler is dead.
That doesn't mean there are no options. Existing customers that don't want to move can manually upgrade the Debian release and run regular Linux admin tools & utilities. The rclone utility has it's own web GUI now and everything else can use the 'webmin' tool set. Of course the CLI is also there too. There's not all that much special about what ReadyOS is doing - it's really just a glorified GUI.
If you don't plan on staying with Netgear then it shouldn't matter to you what gets changed, just don't update ? I don't want to make more landfill, the hardware was the main reason I brought this box, it was a deciding factor. If moving the data off and back meant the system being more useful and up to date along with UI changes I'd do it.
Centos losing support from what I heard. Or lifespan has been changed, still better than nothing I guess, this is why I suggested TrueNas or something cooked up by the DUMA team.
You suggest existing customers use SSH and command line, defeats the whole purpose of buying a ready made Nas box, if I wanted to go down that whole rabbit hole I would of built my own system.
@SignedAdam CentOS isn't losing support. RedHat can try to do a power grab and shut it down, but the RPMs are there and the board will almost certainly continue it without RedHat's support. Even without that, CentOS Stream core components will be stable enough. Not that I care.
These small storage systems are spinning rust with an expiration date. Past 4 years they go to the landfill, or you lose data.
There is no revenue for Netgear in doing anything to facilitate another vendor like Ix supporting the older platforms, so they won't.
Honestly in this day and age if you can't handle simple Linux configuration with the help of google/youtube, then you probably shouldn't bother owning a NAS - just pay for gdrive. I even included GUI tools that already simplify it for you, lol.
That's what I meant, redhat are pulling the rug, last I heard it's going ahead? And the community isn't happy about it.
Agreed the age of harddrives are limited, but for people who can't afford solid state, it does the job and will continue to, for customers who want that.
The thing is @jw48165 if this was a Synology Nas, could do everything I need to do by the user interface, but because it's a readynas... Netgear have let us down and they need to sort it out, which is why I'm determined to make sure they HEAR ME!
Please please please, for the love of God, give us real docker integration, get rid of the current app situation, but keep the upload button move all your Netgear apps on to docker. Ridiculous...
