RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
Currently installing my first Netgear NAS at my customer's ofice. Everything going smoothly very impressed with the product so far. A couple of questions:
Networking has been left on the default DHCP (in the past I have always used static IPs on other NAS products)
I intend to have a nightly scheduled shutdown - is it normal for the Netgear to assign the same IP address after a schedules shutdown/restart?
I thought I read somewhere in these forums that if you do change from DHCP to a static IP address, some settings of the NAS are reset - is that true and if so what one's are reset?
Finally I have a large amount of data to copy onto the NAS (over 600GB) - what is the best/quickest way to do this? Eg USB3 external hard drive connected directly to the NAS (and how do you do a copy from an directly connected USB drive?) or just from within Windows in the normal way?
Any help or suggestions re the above will be greatly appreciated
Model: RN21200|ReadyNAS 212 Series 2-Bay (Diskless)
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
One thing you should consider is disabling ipv6 on the ReadyNAS. If the customer's network doesn't use ipv6 (most won't), then it's best to disable it.
I intend to have a nightly scheduled shutdown - is it normal for the Netgear to assign the same IP address after a schedules shutdown/restart?
Addresses are controlled by the DHCP server, not the ReadyNAS. On power-up, the NAS will request an address from the server. What happens then depends on the server.
Many DHCP servers have a facility to reserve DHCP addresses - in general that's a better approach than using a static address. It allows the customer to manage their addresses from a single server - avoiding accidental duplicate addresses, etc. Netgear routers call this feature "address reservation". It has some other names (arp binding is one).
I thought I read somewhere in these forums that if you do change from DHCP to a static IP address, some settings of the NAS are reset - is that true and if so what one's are reset?
That's not correct. OS reinstalls will reset some other settings (NAS admin password, and perhaps volume quota). But manually reconfiguring the IP address won't.
One thing that many people overlook, is that when you switch to a static IP address you do need to add one or more DNS servers to the network configuration.
As noted above, address reservation is a more managable (and more robust) approach.
Finally I have a large amount of data to copy onto the NAS (over 600GB) - what is the best/quickest way to do this? Eg USB3 external hard drive connected directly to the NAS (and how do you do a copy from an directly connected USB drive?) or just from within Windows in the normal way?
Connecting the drive to the NAS and copying from Windows is not the best way. The data is pulled over the network to the Windows system, and then pushed back to the NAS. If you want to copy from Windows, it's better to connect the USB drive to the PC, and copy the data over a wired network connection. Then the data is transfered over the network once, and not twice.
Copying ~600 GB of data over a gigabit network will take about 2 hours. There are some copy tools that can verify data (teracopy is one) - if you want to verify the copy, then it will double the time.
If you want to connect the drive to the NAS, then you can use one or more NAS backup jobs to copy the files to the data volume. It's not difficult (though it is a bit more work than doing it from Windows). The main benefit of a connecting the drive to the NAS is that you can copy the data remotely.
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
Thank you StephenB that is a very usefull (and appreciated) reply. The customer is not using a server so the addressing is just handled by DHCP on the modem I presume. I wondered if the same IP would be handed out (if it wasn't otherwise in use) after the power recycle. But of course you're right, addressing is not the job of the NAS. The only reason a known and reliable IP address was improtant was due to a program (type of a data base and customer mangement program used in the real estate industry) running on individual computers accessing the data on the NAS. But it looks like I can set the destination of the data by the name of the NAS and the directory where the data is (eg \\NETGEARNAS\Data) where NETGEARNAS is the name of the NAS and Data is the directpry created on the NAS where the data is. I think that should work regardless of what the IP address is. I'll find out tomorrow if that works!
If it doesn't then I'll have to set a static IP and set the path to the data via the IP address, and it's a relief that changing the IP addressing from DHCP to Static does not affect other settings - thanks for clarifying that.
Lastly thanks for suggesting how to get the data into the NAS - That was my first choice for doing that and I appreciate your comments
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
On DHCP, the modem/gateway likely does have a way to reserve the address. I suggest looking for that feature before you assign a static one. You need to look at the gateway anyway, to make sure the static address you pick is outside of the range that the DHCP server assigns (but of course within the subnet mask).
Overall, there are some cases where PCs have trouble resolving the hostname properly. So it is good to have a fixed IP address.
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
Thanks for your assistance. I went back on site this morning and changed the system from DHCP to static for IP4. Early it had been suggested that I turn off IP6 if it wasn't being used (and it's not) but I got cold feet when I went to disable it I got a message something like 'disabling your adapter will make the NAS undiscoverable' or something like that so I left the IP6 as it was.
A couple of things - I presume the scheduled power down took place last night - I didn't have time to look at the logs this morning, however it seems that the same IP address was assigned on scheduled power up, which was lucky because when I went to log into the admin page I got the message something like 'you need to be in the same network range to access this page' or soemthing to that effect. Also, the NAS could not be discovered, even though I could access the data from the desktop or Explorer. It was a bit disconcerting because I would not have been able to log into the admin page at all if it werre not for the fact that the IP address hadn't changed after the power cycle. That shouldn't occur again now that I've set the IP address to static but I found it pretty wierd.
when I went to disable it I got a message something like 'disabling your adapter will make the NAS undiscoverable' or something like that so I left the IP6 as it was.
You shouldn't have gotten any message like that when disabling ipv6. - maybe if you see it again you can take a screenshot.
Although the router isn't assigning ipv6 addresses, if ipv6 is enabled on both the NAS and the PCs it still might end up being used for some local connections. Some posters here found that resulted in poor file transfer speeds. Disabling ipv6 in the NAS solved that problem.
Also, the NAS could not be discovered, even though I could access the data from the desktop or Explorer. That shouldn't occur again now that I've set the IP address to static but I found it pretty wierd.
The discovery failure could recur, but of course if you know the address you can still get into the NAS.
The risks with a static IP address are
(a) if it is within the range assigned by the gateway, you could end up with a duplicate IP address (because the gateway will assign the NAS static IP address to another device).
(b) If the gateway is upgraded, the new gateway might use a different IP address range.
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
The risks with a static IP address are
(a) if it is within the range assigned by the gateway, you could end up with a duplicate IP address (because the gateway will assign the NAS static IP address to another device).
(b) If the gateway is upgraded, the new gateway might use a different IP address range.
In both cases, the NAS can become unreachable."
I was advised earlier to change to a static IP because in some case Windows "has problems resolviing the name' Sounds lilke there could be issues with either a static IP or using DCHP!!!!
I'll just leave it as it is for now (static IP) - this is the way I've set up other NASs (not Netgear) and they hace been reliable. I hope the Netgear proves to be as reliable. It would not be good if I found I couldn't access it or log into it!!!
I was advised earlier to change to a static IP because in some case Windows "has problems resolviing the name' Sounds lilke there could be issues with either a static IP or using DCHP!!!!
Reserving the IP address in the gateway has the same effect as making it static, but is a better way to go.
To be more specific - if the DHCP service in the router assigns addresses 192.168.0.2-192.168.0.64, then it is a big mistake to assign a static IP address that is in this range. That's because the DHCP service assumes that it is the only service that can assign those addresses. You need to assign an address outside that range, but within the subnet - typically 192.168.0.65-192.168.0.254. So it's important to examine the DHCP setup, and make sure the static address is safe for you to use. You can't just pick an address out of the air.
Also, there are more than one subnets that are reserved for local networks. 192.168.0.x and 192.168.1.x are both commonly used in gateways and home routers. 10.x.x.x is often used in corporate networks, and there are other ranges that are also sometimes used. If the gateway is replaced (or reconfigured) by the customer, the address range can change. In that case, if you use a static address the NAS won't be reachable.
Both of these issues apply to all NAS, they are not Netgear-specific.
ReadyNAS does provide a way for you to reset the NAS network configuration to make it reachable again. You'd do that by doing an OS Reinstall from the boot menu. However, that does require you to be on site (or have an assistant there who is capable of doing that reboot). Reserving the IP address eliminates that risk. If the gateway is replaced, the reservation is simply lost, and a different IP address is used. The NAS is still reachable, and the problem is solved by simply reserving a new address in the gateway that is in it's new address space.
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
That's useful information - thank you. Per your request earlier re the warning message I receive when trying to disable IPv6, I'll take a screen shot when I'm back on site later this week. So far everything seems to be working well though
Re: RN21200 DHCP IP address after scheduled power down and copying large amount of data
Earlier in this thread I was asked to upload a screenshot of the message generated when attempting to turn OFF IPv6. The message is generated when choosing Apply after disabling IPv6. I exit out before applying - I don't want to lose connection to the NAS!
