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Forum Discussion
CABird_UK
Jan 26, 2021Tutor
NAS
I own a Netgear NAS 204 and 214. Both have eSATA connections. Can either or both connect to the below item? External 4 Bay RAID System for 3.5" SATA HDD USB 3.0 from Icy Box IB-RD3640SU3, Manufac...
- Feb 02, 2021
Sandshark wrote:
The ReadyNAS is designed to have "dumb" drives on eSATA -- it wants to see and control the drive directly. Since your enclosures have both USB and eSATA, I'm not surprised they don't work on ReadyNAS eSATA. The 100 and 200 series also don't have port multiplier functionality on eSATA, so don't support a multi-drive chassis on it (or see only one of the multiple drives). Of course, I'm not sure why you'd want to, anyway, since USB3 is faster.
I have no idea if a ReadyNAS could see the individual drives in a unit like that when not in RAID mode, but it definately couldn't make it's own RAID from them if it did. Using an internal RAID mode of the unit and USB, the NAS should be able to see it (it saw the internal RAID on my similar Drobo box for the short time I used it as one big drive). Of course, if there are any utilities needed to fully utilize it (as there are on the Drobo), that'll create another issue since they're not going to run on the NAS.
For some reason this thread is locked - I can reply, but cannot unlock it for Sandshark, so I am posting on his behalf. JohnCM_S , Marc_V - I've seen this happen a few times over the past few months. Can you follow up with the forum administrator?
Sandshark
Feb 03, 2021Sensei
schumaku wrote:
Netgear had added support for their own expansion boxes (true SATA multipliers) only, and crippled it somehow so 3rd party SATA multipliers can't be used (well, nobody reverse-engineered it at least).
Not true. I successfully (well, to the same poor performance level of an EDA500) used two third party 5-bay eSATA expansion chassis plus a real EDA500 on an RN516. The OS thought they were all EDA500's. But, they were "dumb" chassis -- just a port multiplier, no RAID, no USB option. It was a hot mess, and I moved to a 12-bay rack mount system, but it worked as well (poorly) as three EDA500's would have.
schumaku
Feb 03, 2021Guru - Experienced User
Sandshark wrote:Not true. I successfully...
Sorry, forget about your test 8-/
The SATA multiplier boxes I had at hand were not recognized in my test back then. Hey what performance you had expected driving multiple SATA drives over a single SATA interface? Never mind.... this just proofed Netgear had not added much progress since - especially when comparing to Q and S.
- SandsharkFeb 04, 2021Sensei
There are two forms of SATA port multiplication, command and FIS based, though my knowlege of them is pretty limited. While most systems support both, some may only support one. FIS would ceretainly be better for a NAS expansion, but I have no idea whether the ReadyNAS supports one or both. The boxes I used support both, which doesn't help me figure it out. If you know which method the boxes that didn't work use, then maybe we could. Not that it really matters since it's such a terribly slow way to expand a NAS. Of course, that may be in part because it only supports command-based switching. That may also be a factor in why the chassis with both eSATA and USB don't work -- they are limited to the wrong protocol.
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