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ReadyNAS 3100 Maximum HDD size?
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Greetings,
I soon will be receiving a ReadyNAS 3100 for personal/home use. While I understand that, according to the compatibility chart, the maximum size of HDD supported is 3TB per drive, I am wondering if anyone have any experience in using >=4TB drives on ReadyNAS-3100?
I also understand that if I used a HD that is not on the compability chart I won't get any official support. However, since this will be for personal use, I simply want to invest my money wisely. Instead of buying 4x 3TB drives I like to purchase 4x 5TB or even 4x 6TB drives to maximize the storage/dollar ratio. I currently have 3x 4TB drives on my personal server so I may simply buy one additional 4TB drives and migrate slowly.
Any help is very much appreciated,
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You can use larger disks. The hardware HCL hasn't been updated in some years (Netgear stopped qualifying disks for your system quite a while ago). I do recommend either NAS-purposed disks (WDC Red or Seagate Ironwolf) or enterprise class drives for your NAS.
There are two expansion limits that apply to OS 4.2 systems like the 3100
- a volume cannot be expanded over a 16 TiB ceiling
- a volume cannot be expanded more than 8 TiB from it's starting size
Both of these limits do create practical limitations that you should take into account when selecting the disk sizes. In particular, 4x6TB yields a volume size of 18 TB. You can do a factory install with 4x6TB drives, but it would not be expandable.
One thing I suggest is converting your 3100 to run OS-6, which has no known expansion limits. That isn't supported by Netgear, but since your 3100 is used, you can't get support from them anyway.
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You can use larger disks. The hardware HCL hasn't been updated in some years (Netgear stopped qualifying disks for your system quite a while ago). I do recommend either NAS-purposed disks (WDC Red or Seagate Ironwolf) or enterprise class drives for your NAS.
There are two expansion limits that apply to OS 4.2 systems like the 3100
- a volume cannot be expanded over a 16 TiB ceiling
- a volume cannot be expanded more than 8 TiB from it's starting size
Both of these limits do create practical limitations that you should take into account when selecting the disk sizes. In particular, 4x6TB yields a volume size of 18 TB. You can do a factory install with 4x6TB drives, but it would not be expandable.
One thing I suggest is converting your 3100 to run OS-6, which has no known expansion limits. That isn't supported by Netgear, but since your 3100 is used, you can't get support from them anyway.
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Re: ReadyNAS 3100 Maximum HDD size?
Thank you for the prompt reply, very much appreciated. With regarding to OS-6, can you please confirm that the steps at post #3 at the following link is what you are referring to?
regards,
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Re: ReadyNAS 3100 Maximum HDD size?
Those are the steps (particularly the 3-step version at the end). Though this might be more clear:
- BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
- Download PREP4TOR6_0.1-x86 .bin
- Install it it as an add-on using the ReadyNAS web ui, and do not reboot afterwards (avoids the need to do manual factory resets)
- Download R4toR6_6.9.5 .bin
- Install it as a firmware update using the ReadyNAS web ui
- After you install the addon+firmware and reboot, it will update the firmware and start a factory default.
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Re: ReadyNAS 3100 Maximum HDD size?
thank you very much. Once I receive the ReadyNAS 3100, I'll attempt these instructions and report back,
regards,