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Thanks for the continued support

doubleroll
Apprentice

Thanks for the continued support

You guys rock! Thanks for continuing to support the NV+ and rest of the old sparc systems!
Message 1 of 36
peterkin
Guide

Re: Thanks for the continued support

I hate "me too" posts, but me too.
Message 2 of 36
ejorddny1
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Couldn't agree more! My Duo is open to the web so I can access data remotely, without this fix I would be looking for a new NAS. Thanks again!
Message 3 of 36
Tolek
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Thank you for RAIDiator 4.1.14 [T6]
Message 4 of 36
BikeHelmet
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

I appreciate the update, too! I just made the switch from 4.1.7 to 4.1.14 [T6] on my NV+; what a difference! Worked fine with my 1GB RAM upgrade. 🙂
Message 5 of 36
alokeprasad
Mentor

Re: Thanks for the continued support

BikeHelmet wrote:
I appreciate the update, too! I just made the switch from 4.1.7 to 4.1.14 [T6] on my NV+;what a difference! Worked fine with my 1GB RAM upgrade. 🙂

What else does it do besides fix the BASH/Shellshock issue? And that should be pretty transparent tot the user.
Does it add any features or improve the performance?
Message 6 of 36
StephenB
Guru

Re: Thanks for the continued support

alokeprasad wrote:
BikeHelmet wrote:
I appreciate the update, too! I just made the switch from 4.1.7 to 4.1.14 [T6] on my NV+;what a difference! Worked fine with my 1GB RAM upgrade. 🙂

What else does it do besides fix the BASH/Shellshock issue? And that should be pretty transparent tot the user.
Does it add any features or improve the performance?
4.1.7 was released in 2010. There have been a lot of changes (not just security patches), you should review the release notes to see. Google "Raidiator 4.1.x" and the relevant web pages should turn up near the top.
Message 7 of 36
alokeprasad
Mentor

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Ah! I missed that he was updating from a firmware that was that old ...
Message 8 of 36
BikeHelmet
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

alokeprasad wrote:
BikeHelmet wrote:
I appreciate the update, too! I just made the switch from 4.1.7 to 4.1.14 [T6] on my NV+;what a difference! Worked fine with my 1GB RAM upgrade. 🙂

What else does it do besides fix the BASH/Shellshock issue? And that should be pretty transparent tot the user.
Does it add any features or improve the performance?


It made the whole NAS a lot more responsive. 😮 Frontview is a lot quicker to respond, as are addons. Shares used to be unbearably slow to browse, hence me mostly using my ReadyNAS as a backup device. Now it's quite capable at multitasking, streaming two or more HD video streams without any buffering/stalls. I suspect they optimized SSL and changed the niceness/priority of a lot of daemons. There's probably also some updates included that have optimized Sparc performance. A share that used to take 12-15 seconds to come up now comes up in 1-2, if that.

StephenB wrote:
alokeprasad wrote:
BikeHelmet wrote:
I appreciate the update, too! I just made the switch from 4.1.7 to 4.1.14 [T6] on my NV+;what a difference! Worked fine with my 1GB RAM upgrade. 🙂

What else does it do besides fix the BASH/Shellshock issue? And that should be pretty transparent tot the user.
Does it add any features or improve the performance?
4.1.7 was released in 2010. There have been a lot of changes (not just security patches), you should review the release notes to see. Google "Raidiator 4.1.x" and the relevant web pages should turn up near the top.

I generally subscribe to the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" principle, since with computers updates often change/break more than they resolve. :lol:
Message 9 of 36
Mr_B
Guide

Re: Thanks for the continued support

I to want to give some thanks for the simple fact that the Sparc hasn't faded just yet. I still think it sucks that they haven't added large drive support, but then again, i stocked mine with 4x2TB drives at the get go, and simply bought a newer unit from someone else when i needed larger spaces still.

At least they are maintaining some sort of support for the sucker.
Thanks.
B!
Message 10 of 36
WSJ
Aspirant
Aspirant

I did not expect any further updates...

Netgear positively surprised me - I did not expect any further updates for the Sparc ReadyNAS.
Microsoft has discontinued providing support for Windows XP, which also includes security patches.
Netgear showed their responsibility in reacting on Shellshock. I really appreciate this!
If "the whole NAS [becomes] a lot more responsive" (as BikeHelmet wrote) then that's even more appreciated.
Message 11 of 36
simes_pep
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

+1 on the thanks for the continued support for the Sparc based NAS range.

Even though my ReadyNAS Duo is now my secondary ReadyNAS, used for Backup purposes, it is great knowing it's OS/firmware is up-to-date and any known security issues have been dealt with.

Simon.
Message 12 of 36
melvsee
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Yes. I would also like to express my appreciation for the continued support. This remains my main NAS after the passage of 5 years. No major hiccups to date (well, apart from one horrible firmware release that reset share permissions and the blown power supply all of which were fixed pretty quickly).
Message 13 of 36
Yacht_Rocked
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Me too, especially when the Duo was so quickly replaced without warning by the Duo v2. For what it does, the Duo is a solid little machine.
Message 14 of 36
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Thanks for the continued support

The Duo was released in Q1 2008. The Duo v2 was released November 2011.

The Duo is the 2-bay version of a product released in February 2006.

For those of us regularly on the forums it was obvious the Duo would likely not be around too much longer.

The Duo v2 is a very different product, with a different RAID format, CPU architecture etc.

Companies in this sector don't announce their product roadmap. You can make your own judgments based on when a product was released and past history as to where you believe it is in the product cycle and purchase accordingly.

I remember reading a story where a company making years ago announced a future refresh of their only refresh which would be great. The problem was that when people heard about it they stopped buying the current product and the company went broke.
Message 15 of 36
Mr_B
Guide

Re: Thanks for the continued support

mdgm wrote:
For those of us regularly on the forums it was obvious the Duo would likely not be around too much longer.
On the other hand, why would a potential buyer be a regular visitor to a support forum for a kit if hardware he's not currently a owner of?
I have first hand experience on how hard it is to get proper info when your researching your unit, we talked a bit about this, but the fact remains, some people bought hardware that then sort of got abandoned.

Don't get me wrong. It's great that NetGEAR releases firmware updates to EOL hardware, when there is a critical issue. But the V1's have no hardware reasons for not supporting 3TB+ drives, other then possibly a lack of processing power making them slow. But as far as we know NetGEAR hasn't even tried, and they sure aren't handing over the development package so someone else could try getting it updated.
There is at least a few of us out there that wish we could have got "more" from these. Simply since it's a great bit of kit, and we don't feel it has been used to it's full potential. Cinderella, anyone?
B!
Message 16 of 36
StephenB
Guru

Re: Thanks for the continued support

mdgm wrote:
For those of us regularly on the forums it was obvious the Duo would likely not be around too much longer.
Yes. By the end of 2011, the duo v1 no longer had competitive performance. It runs ~25 MB/s, the arm-based products at that point were at least 2x faster with similar costs. It is reliable (mine is still in use for backup) but it is slow by modern standards.

I don't know of any company that wants a big gap between announcement and availability. Even Apple (which has a fairly predictable launch cycle) is very tight-lipped on exactly what they will be launching., and availability is at most a few weeks after the media launch.

Mr_B wrote:
...some people bought hardware that then sort of got abandoned.
Here we disagree. Warranties were fully honored, and have been 6 firmware releases for the v1 since the duo v2 was launched. You could make a much better case that the duo v2 customers were abandoned, as OS 5 firmware never really matured before it reached EOL

In any event, whenever there are free firmware releases, then the development costs need to be funded by new product sales. At some point companies have to let older products go, otherwise their current products become noncompetitive (since they don't enough sales from new products to fund everything they need to do).

Mr_B wrote:
But the V1's have no hardware reasons for not supporting 3TB+ drives
Do you have data to support this assertion? I still have a PC from that era and a SATA->USB adapter kit. Neither support GPT disks (though I could add a PCI card with a disk controller to the PC, the original hardware remains limited to 2 TB today) .

The V1 has a proprietary sparc design with some custom hardware to accelerate RAID. While you might be correct, it seems to me that you can't/don't have any real information on the hardware limits of the architecture or the scope of the software work.
Message 17 of 36
ukbobboy
Luminary

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Hi StephenB

You said:
You could make a much better case that the duo v2 customers were abandoned, as OS 5 firmware never really matured before it reached EOL
I quite agree with you because I bought my Duo v2 in December 2012 and, once I got to grips the product, I found that the 5.x firmware was not all that it should have been. I would go as far to say that, although the hardware is excellent, the firmware would not stand up to scrutiny if someone decided to sue Netgear under the consumer laws of their country.

Even now, with 5.3.11 just released, there are still some outstanding problems, e.g. comprehensive access rights, etc., that do not work as promised in the advertising and user manuals.

Anyway, I have learned to live with those shortcomings and actually enjoy using my Duo v2 in my domestic environment, as opposed to a semi professional or professional one.


UK Bob
Message 18 of 36
Mr_B
Guide

Re: Thanks for the continued support

StephenB wrote:
Mr_B wrote:
...some people bought hardware that then sort of got abandoned.
Here we disagree. Warranties were fully honored, and have been 6 firmware releases for the v1 since the duo v2 was launched. You could make a much better case that the duo v2 customers were abandoned, as OS 5 firmware never really matured before it reached EOL
Of course warranties were honored. And i already said it's great NetGEAR keeps providing firmware updates to fix critical issues, but it doesn't detract from the fact that we are left with hardware that is more capable then it's current abilities are, simply since nobody has the time to update the OS for it.

StephenB wrote:
In any event, whenever there are free firmware releases, then the development costs need to be funded by new product sales. At some point companies have to let older products go, otherwise their current products become noncompetitive (since they don't enough sales from new products to fund everything they need to do).
I don't see anywhere that i said otherways. I still think it sucks that they haven't enabled people to take over the development of the OS, so we at least had a chance at an updated port.

StephenB wrote:
Mr_B wrote:
But the V1's have no hardware reasons for not supporting 3TB+ drives
Do you have data to support this assertion? I still have a PC from that era and a SATA->USB adapter kit. Neither support GPT disks (though I could add a PCI card with a disk controller to the PC, the original hardware remains limited to 2 TB today) .

The V1 has a proprietary sparc design with some custom hardware to accelerate RAID. While you might be correct, it seems to me that you can't/don't have any real information on the hardware limits of the architecture or the scope of the software work.
Of course i don't have any data to support it. It's however uncontested over and over here on the forums, alongside with the general assumption that 3TB support WAS coming before the hardware was EOL'ed. Bottom line is, the current debian version doesn't support it, but the hardware does. Again, in private conversations there has been some concern over performance issues voiced, and they might very well be right, but it would at least had been nice to be given the option, even if it's through user developed firmware. Not that it's happening, NetGEAR isn't opening up the product to that extent. EOL'ed or not, it's their call, and we have to respect that. But i don't have to like it.
B!
Message 19 of 36
StephenB
Guru

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Mr_B wrote:
Of course i don't have any data to support it. It's however uncontested over and over here on the forums, alongside with the general assumption that 3TB support WAS coming before the hardware was EOL'ed.
I get the frustration, it would be very nice if I could install 3 or 4 TB drives in my v1 products. They are rapidly reaching the point where they don't offer enough storage to be useful to me.

But the truth is we simply don't know how difficult this feature would have been to implement, or if the acceleration hardware could have been used with the larger drives. They could perhaps have made the firmware completely open source, but in the end they didn't. I don't think there'd have been much developer interest in taking it on, given that the base hardware wasn't competitive anyway - though of course we'll never know that.

But that was 2011, so it is a 3 year old story. Today an RN104 costs less than $300 street price at the moment, is much faster, and has more features. The RN102 is about $150. Prices are much lower than my original duo and nv+ were, and I'm much better off upgrading and letting the old stuff go. New firmware to fix security stuff in the meantime is great, but as the current disks fail I will simply retire the v1s.
Message 20 of 36
Mr_B
Guide

Re: Thanks for the continued support

StephenB wrote:
But that was 2011, so it is a 3 year old story. Today an RN104 costs less than $300 street price at the moment, is much faster, and has more features. The RN102 is about $150. Prices are much lower than my original duo and nv+ were, and I'm much better off upgrading and letting the old stuff go. New firmware to fix security stuff in the meantime is great, but as the current disks fail I will simply retire the v1s.
I on the other hand retired the NV+ long time ago, and put it back to "home use" and for work i'm using 4 Thecus 1U4200XXXS. Bottom line is, we don't need speed. We need space, and reliability. The NV+ sure has shown it's colors for reliability, but the lack of support for it made us look elsewhere when it came to expanding our capacity. If things had turned out differently we might have had several generations of NetGEAR products instead. The one i got here is just over 3 years old now, (bought May 2011) and while it did lose a drive early on, that can't really be blamed on the NV+, but rather on Seagate, who replaced it. For a couple of weeks it ran on 3 drives without complaints, once the replacement was available it got slotted, and ever since i haven't needed to do as much as restart it for anything other then adding / removing addons, or updating the firmware. That kind of reliability simply cant be beat. Just to bad the experience left me with a sour taste, so i went looking elsewhere from then on.
B!
Message 21 of 36
chucko58
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

Let me add my voice to the chorus. Our ReadyNAS NV (!) is slow, but after the original power supply was replaced, has been rock solid. It's currently got a full complement of WD 2TB drives and is humming away at my feet as I speak.

I was a bit surprised when I learned of 4.1.14 because the NAS's notification mail bounced off the ISP's server. 🙂
Message 22 of 36
StephenB
Guru

Re: Thanks for the continued support

All my ReadyNAS have been rock-solid, and I agree that's essential.

I still plan to retire my V1s when the disks fail (and I don't expect the NAS hardware to fail first!). Even with 2 TB drives, they soon won't have enough capacity to back up all of my growing storage. I'm leaning towards low-cost NAS with jbod 6 TB drives for that. If the V1s had the capacity I need, I'd keep them running for sure.
Message 23 of 36
Yacht_Rocked
Aspirant

Re: Thanks for the continued support

My next NAS may actually be a Mac-Mini with a small internal SSD and then some external drives, backed up to the cloud. For an Apple-centric household, it's an easy way to serve iTunes, Time Machine, Plex, etc with no compatibility issues and full support from Apple. YMMV of course.
Message 24 of 36
StephenB
Guru

Re: Thanks for the continued support

A VM in the NAS is another option for itunes, though I think that would need to run the windows OS (not sure if Apple licenses OSX for VMs).

I'm not a Mac guy, but I think time machine already works ok with linux.

Plex certainly has good linux support, though if you want transcoding you need to get the right class of CPU.
Message 25 of 36
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