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How to Upgrade the CPU and RAM in a ReadyNAS 516
Well I have done it. It seems to be working great. I've ran a few basic tests and you really don't get a idea of the differance without accessing it. you can notice the speed Improvment. Accessing files is much snappyer. The main reason for the Upgrade is more Transcoding capabilities at once uisng PLEX which is installed on it. The Upgrade went easyier then I thought it would. I have lots of pictures to help people out that also want to try this. My RN51500 ReadyNAS I actually got about 6 months ago USED for about half the price of a new one. I got it from a 3rd party seller on Amazon. They did screw up at first and sent me a ReadyData 516. That was worthless to me as it wouldn't allow me to use my HDD's I already had. You can only use one's you get from Netgear with a ReadyData!!! They look the same, they are NOT the same!!! This full upgrade cost me around $300 to do, to bascially make is a ReadyNAS 716. Other then the 10Gigbit port. So onto the show. This will be pretty LONG. Before you start, make sure you BACKUP your NAS. You do have a real Backup right? The Orignal CPU is a i3-3220. The NEW CPU is a E3-1265 V2. This is the exact CPU used in the ReadyNAS 716. So for PLEX transcoding, Very roughly speaking, for a single full-transcode of a video, the following PassMark scores are a good guideline for a requirement: 1080p/10Mbps: 2000 PassMark & 720p/4Mbps: 1500 PassMark. The listing on Amazon for the RN51600 CPU is currantly WRONG. It shows a i3-2120. It's NOT! Netgear lists the correct CPU and pulling my old one shows the correct one also. Here is my ReadyNAS 516 in my small closet that's about in the middle of my house where I keep my Network stuff. There's also a duel fan setup above the door that's temp controlled. It auto runs and stops as needed. The fans are quite and mounted to a wood type vent, which I painted to match the rest of the hall way with the vents going in a up direction. Cool air gets sucked in from the bottom of the door where there's about a 1" gap, and gets blown out the top into the hallway. Currantly there's a APC UPS Pro 500, a Motorola Cable Modem, a Asus Wifi Router. The FREE one form T-Mobile!!! Under that is a ZyXEL GS1910-24 Managed 24-port Gigabit Switch. Both 1 gigabit ports on the NAS as plugged in and Bonded. That's the 2 yellow cables plugged in on the left side of the switch. There's also a Tivo Stream Box there on the right of the switch for my Tivo Roamio OTA. My house I wired up and have Multi-Keystones in al my rooms. I'm using Cat-6 cables from Monoprice. Here is the main things you need. The CPU, which is a E3-1265L V2. This is the same one used in the 716. I got this one from ebay with a buy now price of $275. I made a offer for $200 and he countered with $225. So that is what I paid for the CPU. Pay attention to what you are bidding on!!! There's E3-1265L that you can buy for under $200, but it's not a V2 or a chip that was sold in the marketplace. They are engineering samples whch are not suppose to be sold. You see they're all coming from China! You are talking your chances. The Memory I got from Amazon for $84.99. It's Crucial 16GM Kit. This is Unbuffered ECC UDIMM Server Memory. It's 1.3 Volts. DDR3 at 1600 MHz. This is a closeup Here is a closeup of my new/used CPU I got on ebay for $225. Inten XEON E3-1265L V2 You also need some Thermal Compound Paste for between the CPU and the Cooler. This is Arctic Silver 5 that I got from Amazon. There's enough here to do a whole lot of CPU's!!! It's made of 99.9% pure silver and is not electrically conductive. But this or anyting else can cause issues if you use to much as gets all over everything. This was $7.39 at Amazon. This is used to clean the Heatsink and can also be used to clean the old CPU. You don't want any of the old stuff left on. This works great to clean the junk off. There's also enough to do many CPU's and heatsinks. This was $8.11 on Amazon. Once you have the CPU, the RAM, The Thermal Compound and cleaner, we can start the Upgrade Process. This is my NAS now pulled out of the closet and on the table. You can see I like the label things. My HDD each have a label on it, and because you can't just pull them to look, I also have a label on the side of the case. What kind and size of HDD and when it was Installed. I didn't pop them all in at one. I Installed a HDD as I needed them for less wear and tear. Hopefully doing this I won't have a issue of 2 HD taking a dump at once. The first 4 HDD are WD Red 3TB is size. They were in my ReadyNas NV+ V2 before I got this NAS. The first one installed was on Jan 17th 2013. So it's coming up on almost 4 years now. Here's a closeup of my first NAS HDD almost 4 years ago now. I pulled all my HDD's. You don't have to, but it makes the NAS much lighter to move around and take apart. As they are all labeled, they all will easily go back in where then need to be. Remove the 7 screws on the back of the NAS at the red circles. I learned there was 1 broken off screw o the bottom right. I didn't know that. Not sure why that is? Who wanted to take it a part for whatever reason. Once the 7 screws are removed. You want to slide the cover back about half a inch and then lift up. There is a lip on the top front of the cover and lips on both bottom sides. It's a little snug. I used the flat edge of the screwdriver and sticking it inbetween the bottom bolt locations, carfully pried just a little be on both sides, then pulled back and up and off. This is a right side view of the NAS. You can see the Hard drive slots on the left and the motherboard there on the right/back in this picture. Now you have 2 screws to remove. You see them here in the picture at the red circles. Once Removed the back will pull off. See next picture. You can go ahead and carfully pull off, top off and down carfully where you can reach in and unplug the power connection and the fan connection as shown in the red circles. Here is what it looks like once you remove the back of the case. You can see the HDD board and the motherboard is there on the right. The red circles are the 2 connection points that link the 2 boards togeather. You want to make sure they plug in togeather when you re-Install the motherboard, which does have alignment pins on the motherboard case cover to help you. This is the left side of the NAS. The motherboard side. Remove the 4 screws that are in the red circles. Once done, you can carfully pull this out, starting with the top. There are wired connections on the bottom, watch out, Tilt down from the top, swinging down most of the way where you can reach the wire plugs. Here I am swinging the motherboard down where I can then get access to the wired plugs. Here's a close up. There are 5 different plug connections. One I have removed already. They all only go in one way, except the small 2 wire plug. I just plugged it back in the same way it came out. A couple are locked in and so you need to push t unlock and pull. That's 2 of them, the one I already removed and that large one that has P1 on it. The thers just pull off. Be careful and kind of wiggle off. Here is what the NAS looks like once the motherboard is removed.
