ReadyNas 3200 OS6 Maximum Storage on Drive bays 1 through 4

[jbandes]

Hello all.

I have a ReadyNAS 3200 and Model X7SB3 and I am running OS6 on firmware 6.9.3. When I try to upgrade to firmware 6.9.5 it installs it but upon rooboot it just hangs. If I power it off and reboot it the unit comes back up on firmware 6.9.3 and again tells me there is an update to 6.9.5 but its an endless loop.

Also I currently have a maximum storeage of 23.23 TB with 3.8 TB of free space. Drive Bays 1 though 4 have 6 TB drives in them. I know that only drive bays 1 though 4 support drives over 2 TB 

Can I install 10 TB drives in drive bays 1 through 4 ?

I am thinking about backing it up, increasing drive bays 1 through 4 on OS6.

[Sandshark]

Yes, you can install 10TB drives with no problem.

Since the 4200V2 uses a motherboard that is similar to the 3200/4200V1 but has an LSI 2008 based SAS controller to handle drive bays 5-12 instead of a Broadcom 1068E, I have wondered if it is possible to install an LSI 2008 based card in a 3200 or 4200V1, turn off the Broadcom controller, and see if the NAS will then use the LSI just like it would on a 4200V2, so those drives could also exceed 2TB.  The OS has to have a driver for the LSI to work with the 4200V2.  The LSI controller would likely need to be in "IT mode" (non-RAID) since te ReadyNAS needs to see individual drives to create its software RAID.

You'd need a couple CBL-0288L-01 SFF to SCSI cables, too.

Before you decide to get even more clever and replace the whole motherboard with the generic X8SI6 the 4200V2 is based on, it doesn't work.  I tried to see if one could be used as a replacement part on a 4200V2, and it didn't boot the OS.  I assume the OS looks at something in the BIOS to see it's a Netgear OEM version of the board.