there is a new patch of the btrfs file system that allows multiple parity raid. I believe it is NOT compatible with the traditional raid 5 on btrfs. Do the net gear systems support that?
I will check with Netgear, but, my guess is that it doesn't matter to them. They have taken btrfs and wrapped around their own X-RAID system on it. The upside is that they are insulated from patches like these that might break traditional systems. The downside is that not all btrfs features are available on these ReadyNAS systems.
Is raid 6 bootable on these models? or do you have to keep a separate boot volume. Further, while I understand dual parity being sufficient for 6 bay systems, it would be nice to have triple parity on 12 bay + systems
The OS uses RAID-1. The OS volume is 4GB. This volume also contains the config and logs so it's important that we can read what's on it in as many cases as possible.
On systems with four disks or more installed we use RAID-6 for swap and you are able to use it for the data volume if you wish.
You can create multiple volumes if you want to e.g. two 6 disk RAID-6 volumes rather than one 12 disk RAID-6 volume.
I'm behind the times on 10Gbit networking...the prices were so high that it just wasn't practical however they're starting to come down enough. Will 10Gbit work over Cat6 cable? Can I connect them to a 1Gbit network for legacy devices? Back when I switched from 10 to 100 and then 100 to 1000 it was a huge boost but I'm not sure about 1000 - 10G...
Yes, 10GBase-T is backward compatible with 1G. I have myself connected 10GBase-T ports on a server to a standard consumer router - like in the review here : http://www.anandtech.com/show/10592/evaluating-fut... : No issues with operation.
You can get a 10GBASE-T-equipped NAS or server and migrate to a 10G switch at a later point in time.
It is backwards compatible with 1Gbit (1000Mbit), but not any slower ports. We expect very few would buy a business class NAS with 10G ports only to plug it into a 100Mbit switch that models over 10 years old would saturate. That would make little sense.
RN626X and the rackmounts have 1G ports as well as 10G ports
BTRFS is the default and only filesystem we use for the data volume on all our new ReadyNAS models from 2013 onwards. All our units with Intel CPUs use it for the root volume too.
You can power down an older x86 OS6 unit and move the disks across (best to keep the order the same) to an empty one of these new ReadyNAS models and power the new unit on.
dulinor there are several points that can be made on this:
1. Hardware can and does fail at any time. 7 years is a pretty good run. Some have longer runs, some not as long.
2. If the PSU failed that would be replaceable (but if you use a standard PSU a change to the pin out would be needed). Some older NV+ units (probably older than yours) are covered by a Service Action as they had defective PSUs that were known to fail prematurely.
3. The RAM is also replaceable if that has failed.
4. If the hardware has failed and can't be repaired you don't need to buy a chassis off eBay. There are instructions available for using an ordinary x86 Linux machine to recover your data. If the chassis failed, but the disks, array and volume are fine this should be straightforward. We also have the option for you to purchase a new NAS e.g. RN526X and purchase some help from support: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2987...
5. A NAS is not some magic solution to avoid backups. Things like multiple disk failures, other hardware failure, accidental file deletion, fire, flood, theft etc. can happen. RAID is not a replacement for backing up your data. We provide several backup options, to use the NAS as a backup for another device, or to backup data primarily stored on the NAS some place else.
How NAS units compare for one's needs does depend very much on what one intends to do with it.
Well for starters the RN526X and RN626X have 6-bays as opposed to the two of that other NAS. We also have 10 GBASE-T ports.
We're using a powerful CPU, we have more RAM and the RAM we use in these two models is ECC.
BTRFS has been used by the ReadyNAS for a lot longer. I am biased but I do feel our support for this filesystem is one of our strengths. We're using the 4.1 LTS kernel (we usually update to a newer minor release of this kernel in a firmware update) with some additional patches backported. You can see which kernel is being used by a device by looking at the GPL code for it.
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drajitshnew - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
there is a new patch of the btrfs file system that allows multiple parity raid. I believe it is NOT compatible with the traditional raid 5 on btrfs. Do the net gear systems support that?ganeshts - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
I will check with Netgear, but, my guess is that it doesn't matter to them. They have taken btrfs and wrapped around their own X-RAID system on it. The upside is that they are insulated from patches like these that might break traditional systems. The downside is that not all btrfs features are available on these ReadyNAS systems.mdgm - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
We use mdadm RAID. You can easily see this looking at any of our OS6 units or looking at the VM.BTRFS RAID has had it's problems and to the best of my knowledge we have never used it.
We use mdadm for the RAID with the BTRFS filesystem on top. The best RAID (mdadm) + the best filesystem (BTRFS) for Linux.
drajitshnew - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
Is raid 6 bootable on these models? or do youhave to keep a separate boot volume.
Further, while I understand dual parity being sufficient for 6 bay systems, it would be nice to have triple parity on 12 bay + systems
mdgm - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
The OS uses RAID-1. The OS volume is 4GB. This volume also contains the config and logs so it's important that we can read what's on it in as many cases as possible.On systems with four disks or more installed we use RAID-6 for swap and you are able to use it for the data volume if you wish.
You can create multiple volumes if you want to e.g. two 6 disk RAID-6 volumes rather than one 12 disk RAID-6 volume.
noeldillabough - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
I'm behind the times on 10Gbit networking...the prices were so high that it just wasn't practical however they're starting to come down enough. Will 10Gbit work over Cat6 cable? Can I connect them to a 1Gbit network for legacy devices? Back when I switched from 10 to 100 and then 100 to 1000 it was a huge boost but I'm not sure about 1000 - 10G...ganeshts - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
Yes, 10GBase-T is backward compatible with 1G. I have myself connected 10GBase-T ports on a server to a standard consumer router - like in the review here : http://www.anandtech.com/show/10592/evaluating-fut... : No issues with operation.You can get a 10GBASE-T-equipped NAS or server and migrate to a 10G switch at a later point in time.
mdgm - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
It is backwards compatible with 1Gbit (1000Mbit), but not any slower ports. We expect very few would buy a business class NAS with 10G ports only to plug it into a 100Mbit switch that models over 10 years old would saturate. That would make little sense.RN626X and the rackmounts have 1G ports as well as 10G ports
mdgm - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
So the RN626X and rackmounts can be connected to slower switch ports but only using the 1G ports on the NAS units.GraffitiKnight - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
"the first COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) NAS operating system to come with support for the btrfs file system"Synology added btrfs support with DSM 6.0, which was released in Beta last year and final in March.
ganeshts - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
ReadyNAS has been having it in production systems from before that.I covered Synology's btrfs launch here : http://www.anandtech.com/show/9700/synology-launch... : October 2015 ; We first looked at Netgear's btrfs in our November 2013 review of the RN312 : http://www.anandtech.com/show/7500/netgear-readyna... ]
I stand by my assertion that Netgear's ReadyNAS OS 6 was the first COTS NAS OS to come with support for the btrfs file system.
mdgm - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
BTRFS is the default and only filesystem we use for the data volume on all our new ReadyNAS models from 2013 onwards. All our units with Intel CPUs use it for the root volume too.You can power down an older x86 OS6 unit and move the disks across (best to keep the order the same) to an empty one of these new ReadyNAS models and power the new unit on.
dulinor - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link
Which is cool but if you have good disks in a bad SPARC ReadyNAS you're SOL. Had to pay eBay extortion for a new chassis just to extract my data.2009-2016 was a pretty good run, honestly, but I would have expected the drives to go before the unit.
mdgm - Saturday, September 3, 2016 - link
dulinor there are several points that can be made on this:1. Hardware can and does fail at any time. 7 years is a pretty good run. Some have longer runs, some not as long.
2. If the PSU failed that would be replaceable (but if you use a standard PSU a change to the pin out would be needed). Some older NV+ units (probably older than yours) are covered by a Service Action as they had defective PSUs that were known to fail prematurely.
3. The RAM is also replaceable if that has failed.
4. If the hardware has failed and can't be repaired you don't need to buy a chassis off eBay. There are instructions available for using an ordinary x86 Linux machine to recover your data. If the chassis failed, but the disks, array and volume are fine this should be straightforward. We also have the option for you to purchase a new NAS e.g. RN526X and purchase some help from support: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2987...
5. A NAS is not some magic solution to avoid backups. Things like multiple disk failures, other hardware failure, accidental file deletion, fire, flood, theft etc. can happen. RAID is not a replacement for backing up your data. We provide several backup options, to use the NAS as a backup for another device, or to backup data primarily stored on the NAS some place else.
MotorStallion - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link
New to this NAS space....How does this device compare with Synology DS716+II?mdgm - Thursday, September 15, 2016 - link
How NAS units compare for one's needs does depend very much on what one intends to do with it.Well for starters the RN526X and RN626X have 6-bays as opposed to the two of that other NAS. We also have 10 GBASE-T ports.
We're using a powerful CPU, we have more RAM and the RAM we use in these two models is ECC.
BTRFS has been used by the ReadyNAS for a lot longer. I am biased but I do feel our support for this filesystem is one of our strengths. We're using the 4.1 LTS kernel (we usually update to a newer minor release of this kernel in a firmware update) with some additional patches backported. You can see which kernel is being used by a device by looking at the GPL code for it.
mandakh - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link
rn526x model support 16GB ECC registered memory?