The new 300 Series, worth the upgrade (from Ultra 4)?

[abderrahman]

I am currently an Ultra 4 user, very happy & satisfied with it
It's been with me for a year now, populated with 4x2TB X-RAID2 drives

Anyway, greed is in the nature of humankind, and seeing how's the new OS6 series (100, 300, 500) has many features I am wondering if it's worth it to buy a 300 NAS

NETGEAR made it very clear that OS6 is not coming to any of the previous x86 systems "due to compatibility issues" as the announcement on this forum says

So, in terms of performance, and overall improvement, how much is that? And realistically, is it worth it to upgrade to a 300 (I only use my NAS to store files, I don't stream or run a server other than a file one)? And if so, what to do with the old-still-new one (compared to what such hardware is supposed to live)?

[chirpa]

It won't be a lot faster, just the new OS6 features/interface; if you need more speed look at the 500 series.

If you can backup all of your data, you can also get OS6 on your existing system, see link in my signature.

[abderrahman]

Amazing, thanks Chirpa

a) Will the newly converted 4.2 after installing OS6 be able to install regular OS6 updates (i.e. becomes a full OS6, no need to edit the image)?
b) Is it possible to revert back to 4.2?

[chirpa]

a) Once its converted, you can do Check for Update to get new releases. It will act like a 300 series. It will also have features like Teaming/Bonding and Active Directory, that were crippled in the Ultra line (only in the Pro line).
b) You can use the USB Boot Recovery support tool to go back to 4.2. Factory default is needed with either direction, since the filesystems are not compatible. HAVE A BACKUP.

This isn't supported by NTGR, so you won't be able to call support ($$ anyways) to get help.

The community is working on fixing a few minor glitches in the convert (temperature settings don't show, fan speeds run high for some).
More info here: viewtopic.php?p=395323#p395323

[abderrahman]

Excellent stuff

I'll wait a bit, some of the replies in the last link raise valid points/disadvantages. In the meantime I'll try it on VM, maybe that will satisfy the "lust" 🙂

The USB recovery article (x86) seems to suggest that the USB recovery process is different from OS installation. I don't know the specific anatomy of RNOS, so what's the difference between OS reinstall & recovery? And why I might need to reinstall after recovery?

[chirpa]

USB Recovery re-writes the internal USB flash, replacing the boot OS. OS re-install copies that boot flash to the hard disks. The convert image replaces the boot flash from 4.2 to 6.0 OS. Since OS6 won't let you 'downgrade', the USB recovery method is needed to downgrade it back to 4.2.

If anything, playing with the VM will give you a feel of the new OS. Maybe even consider getting a 300 series to accompany your Ultra 4. Use the 300 as primary, and the Ultra 4 as your backup system.

[abderrahman]

I don't think I'll be keeping 2 NASes, I've already sunk a great deal of money into my current Ultra 4... going through customs in 2 countries alone cost me the original price of the unit! And HDDs are also a great amount of money at that capacity and number. Plus, I don't really need 2, one is enough =]