Cooked NV+ (RND4000)

[Skrrp]

Model: ReadyNAS NV+ RDN4000 v3
Firmware: sticker says v4.1.7, maybe upgraded once 3 years ago
Drives: 4x Western Digital Cavair Green 2TB
Array: RAID 5

I've had my NV+ running for many years but like an idiot recently I let stuff build up over the front intake. Short story: it's cooked. The PSU smelled like burning plastic and given the heat coming off it I'm lucky I didn't have a fire. It now won't power at all.

I'm looking to buy a new enclosure to house my disks (I really hope they are good) but NV+'s seem to be in short supply and cost more than newer units.

Is it safe to buy a newer Netgear unit and just push my drives into it?
Is there anything I need to watch out for before I power the new unit on?

Thanks for any advice,
Skrrp.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Skrrp wrote:

I'm looking to buy a new enclosure to house my disks (I really hope they are good) but NV+'s seem to be in short supply and cost more than newer units.

Contact support. They might be willing to sell you a PSU. Warranty is 5 years, so it's possible it might still be covered. If you replace it with an RN314 or better they might also be able to provide data migration help.

Also, there was a service action some years ago, and if your serial number is within the range, they will provide a PSU even if there is no warranty.

If you do get a second hand unit, make sure you get an NV+ v1 and not a v2. Start with a scratch disk and install current firmware (4.1.14). Then power down, and migrate your disks (keeping them in the same slot).

Another option is get a new PSU. You can save some money if it is temporary (keeping the PSU out of the chassis) but you do need to modify the pinout of the stock ATX PSU

You can't directly insert the disks into a newer NAS (v2, pro/ultra or OS 6).

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Skrrp wrote:

I'm looking to buy a new enclosure to house my disks (I really hope they are good) but NV+'s seem to be in short supply and cost more than newer units.

Contact support. They might be willing to sell you a PSU. Warranty is 5 years, so it's possible it might still be covered. If you replace it with an RN314 or better they might also be able to provide data migration help.

Also, there was a service action some years ago, and if your serial number is within the range, they will provide a PSU even if there is no warranty.

If you do get a second hand unit, make sure you get an NV+ v1 and not a v2. Start with a scratch disk and install current firmware (4.1.14). Then power down, and migrate your disks (keeping them in the same slot).

Another option is get a new PSU. You can save some money if it is temporary (keeping the PSU out of the chassis) but you do need to modify the pinout of the stock ATX PSU

You can't directly insert the disks into a newer NAS (v2, pro/ultra or OS 6).

[mdgm-ntgr]

What's involved if you go down the route of getting a new ReadyNAS is described here: ReadyNAS: Migrating disks from RAIDiator to OS 6

At this point I wouldn't get a new Sparc NAS (your NV+ v1 hardware revision 3 is a Sparc NAS). They have been discontinued for some years and even the most cost effective of the current models is faster.

Note ReadyNAS OS 6.4.2 is now available. I would update to that using a scratch disk (must not be from your array) as described in the article above.

[Skrrp]

Thanks for your advice. I went with buying a new PSU for it in the end.

It's slightly depressing that newer enclosures won't take the disks straight up.

I think my next purchase is going to be a cheap 4-bay server and I'll go with BSD and ZFS.

Thanks again,
Skrrp

[mdgm-ntgr]

We use a very different OS, different CPU architecture, different RAID format and different filesystem in the new boxes.

The first Sparc ReadyNAS were released back in 2004 and the last of them was still a current model into late 2011.