Readynas 102 extremely slow after update to 6.4.1

corinbishop

Like you I am appalled by Netgears attitude to this.

Recently a Netgear engineer has advised me that on testing a 102 they too have discovered that backups take far longer under 6.4.0 than 6.2.5.....which says an awful lot about their testing of their firmware prior to release. That revelation also comes 5 months after I first raised the matter. How long does all this take?

I too want to go back to 6.2.5 but apparently it isn't without risk. So be warned.

Personally given that there are so many issues you would think that common sense would prevail and we would be given a route to enable this. However common sense seems to be lacking.

Good luck and let us know.

You might like to follow another thread,  look this up:-

Readynas 102 not backing up and freezing after upgrade to 6.4.2

Regards

John

Hi John, 

I do agree that this has not been a good upgrade by Netgear. When planning a firware release that is non-downgradable it needs to be tested above and beyond normal levels. It's clear that it's not been tested. Even when my machine got back on line again I've not seen one single benefit to 6.4 over 6.2. 

I've spent so much valuable time (I'm self employed) on the problems with 6.4+ as well as had my workflow slowed down considerbly. It's just left me diappointed and frustrated. 

I will be downgrading to 6.2.5. I actually have an unboxed, RN104 here which I will bring up to 6.2.5, wipe and move over the disks and restore from backup. It will be brand new. I'll then try the downgrade procedure on the current machine and see if it works (with fresh disks). However I won't use the current machine as a primary server ever again. They will only be for secondary, non-essential backups.

I just borrowed a friends synology machine for a test and even though it's an old model (5 years old) it still blew the RN104 away. So I'm not spending any more money (sadly) on netgear. I'm putting money aside for a new synology server in the summer. I won't be recommending netgear to my colleagues anymore (I'm a photographer who also does IT consultancy for a load of other photographers - I've know of at least 22 other photographers who've bought netgear on my recommendation, luckily I've told them all not to upgrade from 6.2.5!).

My current machine won't boot in normal mode now. My previous support case has been closed so I will have to pay to open another. I think you can pretty much take for granted that opening another support case won't fix the problems. I'm not taking the risk wasting more money.

A really really big shame. So disappointed.

The sad thing is that based on the attitude towards users generally they appear not to give a jot.

I use a 102 and mentioned that I have business data on it which was met with the reply that a 102 is not suitable for business use. That really annoyed me. Grasp at any straw it seems rather than man up and just be honest. Actually my 102 is a home machine on which I have some business data is the truth as I said data is data, it's 1's and 0's the machine should still work properly. I am self employed and have servers at my premises. Would I use Netgear in my offices, no never, not a chance in hell based on this debacle.

My 102 is under warranty and speaking to someone I know in consumer law he says that based on my experience this firmware has rendered it unfit for purpose. I'm seriously wondering whether to follow that up.

Its a shame, made worse by almost total silence from Netgear.

Regards

John

Downgraded to 6.2.5. 

Building volume.

Waiting to return the data. 

Will report back then.

back on 6.2.5, volume resynced. now restoring data. 

did a quick test, now getting old performance back. 38 write, 42 read!

hi

Thats excellent news.

Is it possible to give a walk through of the steps?

Regards

John

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corinbishop wrote:

back on 6.2.5, volume resynced. now restoring data. 

 

did a quick test, now getting old performance back. 38 write, 42 read!

---

Good for you. Some users on ARM systems who have tried downgrading didn't find it went so smoothly.

We are looking into performance issues for USB backups that have been reported on 6.4.x firmware.

The ReadyNAS OS 6.4.x update was a major update including a major update to the Linux kernel from the 3.0 kernel to the 4.1 series LTS kernel.

Doing a major kernel upgrade brings a lot of benefits such as new kernel features, filesystem improvements, other enhancements and bug fixes. Doing such a major upgrade encountering a few issues is not unexpected and we've been fixing issues that have been encountered, most recently fixing the anti-virus issue in 6.5.0 Beta 2.

Looking at some of our competitors, some of them are running much older kernels (e.g. 3.10) so they will run into some issues that are fixed in the kernel we are using.

@ corinbishop wrote:

and even though it's an old model (5 years old) it still blew the RN104 away.

The ReadyNAS Pro released back in 2008 has much higher performance than the RN104, but it cost several times the amount of the RN104. If you compare the RN104 with a device that was sold at a similar price point from 5 years ago, that would be a better comparison.

@ corinbishop wrote:

Hi John, 

 

I do agree that this has not been a good upgrade by Netgear. When planning a firware release that is non-downgradable it needs to be tested above and beyond normal levels. It's clear that it's not been tested. Even when my machine got back on line again I've not seen one single benefit to 6.4 over 6.2. 

I can assure you that it was tested thoroughly internally and for good measure we gave plenty of time for beta feedback for users to share any concerns users found with the update as well. You are also free to wait to see other users' feedback on new firmware releases and factor that into your decision on whether to update. No update is perfect and with any brand you will find that some users run into issues particularly after major upgrades. When Apple and Microsoft release major upgrades to their operating systems there are reports from users who've found the update has broken things for them, and this is despite the huge budgets they would have for development and QA, and huge numbers of beta testers. All that can be done is to look into the issues that arise and work on fixing issues. This is why business users (except those who need to install a major update right away e.g. some in IT) will often wait quite some time after a major update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows before installing it.

Just because you don't see anything in the Release Notes or your usage that you feel would benefit you that doesn't mean that is the case for others. New features such as quotas for example some waited a long time for.

As StephenB mentioned I don't set support policy. It's not my call. We do make some exceptions to our support policy from time to time for common issues that arise on new firmware releases, especially if there is a quick way to resolve those cases. My first years on the ReadyNAS Community were as a customer and I certainly understand where you are coming from.

My role is to do the best I can to help to provide our customers the best experience I can with their ReadyNAS. I work to help solve more challenging problems for customers that come on the community, review posts to see if there are posts with bad advice that could lead to serious issues for users (this is a community and advice provided by users can be of greatly varying quality), get issues raised with engineering where needed, and in some cases refer people to support etc. Some problems are best handled by the support process due to the amount of troubleshooting required.

My final post here on this subject. 

I have restored all my data. Verified it. Verified it again. Checked all the settings and migrated back to the RN104 as my 'main' server. 

I've gone back to 6.2.5. 

From windows7, using NAS performance tester I see a steady 38.5MB/s write speed and steady 52.4 MB/s read.

Using Helios I am seeing a write of 34MB/s and a read of 42MB/s. 

Both these pieces of software test things slightly differently with Helios utilising the operating system more and is therefore more realistic. 

The previous Helios test (backed up with manual copy/paste/general operations) under 6.4.2 was between 6-9MB/s write and 18-20 on read. It did vary a lot. 

I've not seen any advantage in the upgrade. It's cost me a huge amount of time, which for a self employed person is costly. 
I just don't think this current release is appropriate for the RN104. However I also believe there are issues with SMB on an implementation level as the read and write performance seemed to be OS specific. I had tested the performance from Win10 and apple without major problems. It wasn't as good as when running under 6.2.5 but it was still useable. But under Win7+RN104+6.4 was just plain awful. 

I'm not going to have a go at Netgear support or anyone in Netgear. It will acheive nothing. The people I've dealt with have been excellent and I'm grateful for their help. I'm just left with a bad taste in my mouth and lack of confidence. As I mentioned before, I offer a support service for other business people of my type (i.e. photographers) and I've recommended Netgear to at least 22 others businesses. Unless someone from Netgear would like to have a chat with me on the phone, then I will find it hard to recommend them again. That's not say I won't, but when I feel a lack of confindence in a product then it's a natural thing. 

I have a spare RN104 here - unopened. As offered before, if Netgear want to send me some drives I'll quite happily use my real-world data and set-up to test releases. It might give me back some confidence. It's a genunie offer, not just trying to get free drives. 

All the best. 
c

Hello

I am pleased that you have managed to restore your system. I am still reluctant to do this as I am told that some people have 'bricked' their units. Whether this is really the case or scare tactics I'm opened minded.

However for the moment I'm not taking the risk. But I have now copied my data to my old ReadyNAS V1 which is performing well. If that doesn't say something I don't know what.

Like you even though I don't work in this industry I do have a serious need for reliable data storage and sad to say I would would think twice before buying Netgear again and I know I'm not the only one. 5 months is simply ludicrous to get this issue resolved and if I'm honest even an admission that it actually exists. The hours I have spent on this problem and previous problems with this particular NAS unit would have made it cheaper by a factor of 10 to have scrapped it shortly after I bought it.

Anyway, good luck and think twice before updating your firmware again. If nothing else, let a few weeks go by and read comments on this forum first to see if the release is a good one or not.

Kind regards

John