terrible write performance when almost full

[Mr_B]

yea, but I am worried about drive life without a fan as ambient temps get into 90's on a regular basis.

I got that here at home, on a regular basis during the summer. 35c is the record this summer. A good sealed aluminum cabinet should have no troubles keeping up with that. But either way, you got the NAS, And now have to live with, or find a work around for the issues.
The workaround is fairly simple, leave 10% free space.

Cheers.
B!

[StephenB]

Thanks, I will take a look... I never really noticed this issue with older ext3 NAS's I have had. I live on boat, and am in the south pacific as we speak, so getting new hard drives will be a bit of a stretch for the time being. I am happy finally having RAID on my drives as electronics out here don't last long in the salt air...

Do you have an open slot? If so, you could try attaching silica gel packs to the unused drive tray. I suspect a lot of the damage is due to condensation, the gel packs might reduce or prevent that. Also, when the unit is running the temp is probably high enough to prevent most condensation, so if you are attached to external power you might keep the unit running.

[TeknoJnky]

I have always wanted to use an old but working refrigerator for keeping electronics cool and dust free.

[StephenB]

I have always wanted to use an old but working refrigerator for keeping electronics cool and dust free.

I've wondered that myself - my backup NAS are in my attic, where it can get pretty hot. I keep the room cooled to 80 degrees F when I am not in it, but I suspect a small refrigerator could be more power efficient. However, they are designed for lower temperatures than are needed for electronics, and you have to modify it somehow to get the cables through.

But it is probably not practical for a boat, where power (and space) are much scarcer resources.

[Mr_B]

If so, you could try attaching silica gel packs to the unused drive tray. I suspect a lot of the damage is due to condensation, the gel packs might reduce or prevent that. Also, when the unit is running the temp is probably high enough to prevent most condensation, so if you are attached to external power you might keep the unit running.

I'd ignore the silcagel. It's going to suck up all the water it can hold in just a few hours, days at most, if the humidity is high. After that, it's just useless. Leaving the units powerd on is a good idea tho. Even if there is a salt buildup, it's not as corrosive dry, as it is when it's collecting condensation.

Using a old refrigerator isn't cost effective. Worse yet, in the case of an air-conditioned room, the heat from the refrigerating unit is dumped in the room, adding to what has to be dealt with already.
A sealed cabinet, the only thing that can get degraded by moist air, and salts, are power and USB connectors. They can be replaced, either by replacing the whole cabinet, or the contacts them self, if need be. That should be the easy solution.
B!

[TeknoJnky]

well, obviously it wouldn't generate any more heat than a fridge in your kitchen generates... and using an old fridge may or may not be suitable for a boat, but in a home with a garage/attic/basement where it can run and not be heard or worried about the external heat generation, and you can put a UPS and switch inside and only have 2 cables going to/from while keeping multiple devices out of the normal environment.

Also, most fridges have thermostats, you can simply set it to the highest temp, which may not be good for food, but is sufficient to keep the devices cool enough, and save electricity compared to having to keep air conditioning at a lower temp or fridge at colder temp.

The idea is to use the fridge to protech/isolate the equipment from the environment.

I was going to use an old dorm fridge to store my readynas's in, but I gave it away to someone who needed it.

[Mr_B]

well, obviously it wouldn't generate any more heat than a fridge in your kitchen generates...

Actually, your wrong. The kitchen fridge is actually "working" only a few % of the day. A fridge with a heat source in would be working a LOT. Even if it's a small heatsourse. And these NAS'es arent THAT small. We are talking an easy 100w. I wouldn't be shocked if the fridge compressor would be working pretty much 24/7.
B!

[TeknoJnky]

good point! I guess I will have to try it out and see if a normal fridge could even keep up with device generated heat

[StephenB]

...I'd ignore the silcagel. It's going to suck up all the water it can hold in just a few hours, days at most, if the humidity is high. After that, it's just useless. Leaving the units powerd on is a good idea tho. Even if there is a salt buildup, it's not as corrosive dry, as it is when it's collecting condensation.

There are some quite small mini dehumidifier systems that you re-charge by plugging them in. http://www.amazon.com/Remington-Model-3 ... B0028M3YU6 Many are targeted at gun owners.

So that is potentially an option. The models I saw are too large to fit in a drive tray, but they are possibly useful if the NAS is in a small cabinet.

BTW, typical power use for an NV+ v2 is about 50 watts per http://www.netgear.com/images/ReadyNAS_ ... -57079.pdf. So your 100 watt number seems high. Are you seeing a larger power draw?

[Mr_B]

...I'd ignore the silcagel. It's going to suck up all the water it can hold in just a few hours, days at most, if the humidity is high. After that, it's just useless. Leaving the units powerd on is a good idea tho. Even if there is a salt buildup, it's not as corrosive dry, as it is when it's collecting condensation.

There are some quite small mini dehumidifier systems that you re-charge by plugging them in. http://www.amazon.com/Remington-Model-3 ... B0028M3YU6 Many are targeted at gun owners.

So that is potentially an option. The models I saw are too large to fit in a drive tray, but they are possibly useful if the NAS is in a small cabinet.

BTW, typical power use for an NV+ v2 is about 50 watts per http://www.netgear.com/images/ReadyNAS_ ... -57079.pdf. So your 100 watt number seems high. Are you seeing a larger power draw?

Well, first of i got the NV+ V1, so my numbers arent exactly representative, but i did see an easy 100w when putting it under load, until i replaced the drives with 4 Seagate ST2000VX002-1AH166. The older drives were just 500GB drives i had laying around, Seagate / WD, and not exactly the most "green" drives i could find. With the current drives maxing out at 7w a pop it seams heat dropped somewhat, and wattmeter seams to confirm this. Trying to load it down with both running torrents, and grabbing transfers it seams to peak at 90-95w. Far from typical load, i think they list 55w as being typical for the v1's. But then again, typical load isn't interesting when your trying to work out your cooling solutions, you have to handle full load, and simply let the cooling not work as hard when your at less.

Either way, i think it's hard to measure the energy generated by decaying food matters in a fridge, so even at the "typical power use" of 50w your well past normal fridge loads. Depending on your usage pattern, and the fridge used, your going to end up real close to what it can effectively handle, and the compressors in these things aren't made for continual use. The lubricant breaks down when the compressor heats up, and if your unlucky, a couple of days continual running is enough to make it metal scraps ready for recycling.
B!

[StephenB]

...I'd ignore the silcagel. It's going to suck up all the water it can hold in just a few hours, days at most, if the humidity is high. After that, it's just useless. Leaving the units powerd on is a good idea tho. Even if there is a salt buildup, it's not as corrosive dry, as it is when it's collecting condensation.

There are some quite small mini dehumidifier systems that you re-charge by plugging them in. http://www.amazon.com/Remington-Model-3 ... B0028M3YU6 Many are targeted at gun owners.

So that is potentially an option. The models I saw are too large to fit in a drive tray, but they are possibly useful if the NAS is in a small cabinet.

BTW, typical power use for an NV+ v2 is about 50 watts per http://www.netgear.com/images/ReadyNAS_ ... -57079.pdf. So your 100 watt number seems high. Are you seeing a larger power draw?

Well, first of i got the NV+ V1, so my numbers arent exactly representative, but i did see an easy 100w when putting it under load, until i replaced the drives with 4 Seagate ST2000VX002-1AH166. The older drives were just 500GB drives i had laying around, Seagate / WD, and not exactly the most "green" drives i could find. With the current drives maxing out at 7w a pop it seams heat dropped somewhat, and wattmeter seams to confirm this. Trying to load it down with both running torrents, and grabbing transfers it seams to peak at 90-95w. Far from typical load, i think they list 55w as being typical for the v1's. But then again, typical load isn't interesting when your trying to work out your cooling solutions, you have to handle full load, and simply let the cooling not work as hard when your at less.

Either way, i think it's hard to measure the energy generated by decaying food matters in a fridge, so even at the "typical power use" of 50w your well past normal fridge loads. Depending on your usage pattern, and the fridge used, your going to end up real close to what it can effectively handle, and the compressors in these things aren't made for continual use. The lubricant breaks down when the compressor heats up, and if your unlucky, a couple of days continual running is enough to make it metal scraps ready for recycling.
B!

I'm not suggesting that you should use a fridge. Even if it were practical in a normal home environment, it clearly doesn't make sense on a boat.

The mini-dehumidifier looks possible, since it is designed to go into enclosed (but not airtight) spaces.

[buchhla]

Well, having pretty accurate energy monitors on the boat, our small 6 cubic foot fridge with 1.5 cubic foot freezer, with good insulation for the tropics uses about 6A at 12V when running, and has a 35-50% duty cycle depending on the temp of the air and water. That works out around 864 Watt/Hours a day.

My NV+ v2 with 4x 2Tb Spinpoints in it uses around 3.7 A at 12V, so the ~50watts rating netgear shows is pretty correct. It does spike up to around 5-6A during spinup though, and I am not running anything in the background on the unit, just the file share service. That does in include the inverter overhead, which is quite small in the case of what I am using. I have meant to build a 12V-12V switching supply so I can run it straight off the bateries, just havn't gotten to that yet...

[Tangoman]

this is an ext3/ext4 problem going back a few years, not really readynas specific. you can google ext4 fragmentation for lots of info

Utter rubbish.

The box simply does not do what it should be doing - you've got a bug in your firmware.