Install Observations

[venturadeb]

I have an NV+ v2 with 3 terrabyte hard drives (four). I purchased the V1 originally and discovered it will not handle 3 terrabyte drives (bought the wrong one).

I am still trying to get the system up and running after a few days. If I had left it in the v1 with 750gb partitions, I was up in a few hours...

observations:

1) the paper clip thing to boot into factory default is a real waste of time! Why not just have a boot menu that you can access with buttons, and default it into normal boot????? then perhaps have a challenge response of some kind with the buttons. AND, why not have a factory "reset" that works from the raidar utility, regardless of the boot status? If ease of use is your goal, you really missed the mark here...

2) I put three drives into the v2 machine that were in the v1 machine, and a new "clean" fourth drive. When I booted into factory default mode, it downloaded the firmware, and went back to "corrupt partition" error, and would not go forward. I tried this three times. Factory reset does not work with used drives. Your user manual says it will re-format used drives when booted into factory defaults, but it does not work. ultimately booted and set up the single "clean" drive and then added the others. According to the manual, this should work. But based on the factory re-boot experience, I am not sure.

3) The 5.3.4 radiator interface throws lots of errors until everything is set up properly. the error messages do not tell you what is happening. The main one is that you need to have a user identifed in the system (not the admin login). Without a user, the shares menu option and the browse menu option will throw an error on everything. Yet the error does not tell you what is wrong.

4) moving from v1 to v2 machines, it looks like the v2 machine cannot join a domain. Is that correct? not being able to join the machine to a windows domain is a real downer...

5) The v1 interface lets you set up a time server synch, and automatically used my local server when I joined it to the domain. The V2 does not seem to have this option at all

6) I started the synch about 6 hours ago, and the v2 interface gives me no indicator as to the status of synching the four drives. the V1 software did at least let me know it was working, even if the time counter was way off. The volumes menu item is empty, and I have no idea if it is actually working. The log says it is working on one drive, but no indication if it is really going, or just a start time in the log.

7) The graphical interface is "cool" and "slick", but you don't give me anything i can really use. The amount of information is lacking. it needs lots of work.

I like the device concept, and hope it will be an economical solution to my storage needs.

[mdgm]

1) You can do a factory reset via the Dashboard (web-interface) or via the boot menu. Of course the NAS needs to be working for the web-interface to be up and running. As there is no login when accessing RAIDar itself, doing a factory default directly via that could be a security risk.

2) Sometimes used disks need the partitions deleted off them. After that a factory default should work.

4) Correct. It cannot join a domain. The NV+ v2 is targeted at the home user or the small business user who doesn't have a domain.

6) Can you open RAIDar? If you hover the mouse over the volume LED you should see an indication of the progress.

[StephenB]

I have an NV+ v2 with 3 terrabyte hard drives (four). I purchased the V1 originally and discovered it will not handle 3 terrabyte drives (bought the wrong one).

I am still trying to get the system up and running after a few days. If I had left it in the v1 with 750gb partitions, I was up in a few hours...

This is not really comparable. First of all, building the raid array takes longer with the bigger partitions.

And it looks like your setup issues with the V2 happened because you initially installed your disks in the V1. If you had started cleanly with the V2, your experience would likely have been different.

[PapaBear]

Also, on the desktop units, only the Pro series (2/4/6) can join a domain. Home and small businesses normally only have a workgroup and don't need the headache and overhead with maintaining a domain (multiple workgroups).

mdgm is absolutely correct about the reason you got a corrupt root error message. While normally a factory default will fully erase, reformat and reset the drives, there are instances when one must delete all the partitions (not format) an existing drive for the factory default to work. This is most common, and I have encountered it, when moving a drive from one platform to another. In my case it was a drive that had been used in an x-86 based box, replaced with a larger drive and then attempted to install (along with a clean drive of the same model) in an NV+ (v1). I had to first delete the partitions.

As you move to larger drives and more of them, the amount of time needed for a resync will increase. A single drive can be up and running from the initialization through the OS install in less than 30 minutes, because there is no resync. My resyncs with mixed 3TB and 1TB drives is now up to 10-11 hours when it was 6-8 with all 1TB drives.

[venturadeb]

Thanks to all the responses. This is a good product, it gave me some fits getting setup, but it is up and running, and performance is good for the price.

I still feel like there should be an easier way to enter the factory reset, and the documentation does not match what it does. IF there is a factory reset, it should do the partitions regardless the state of the drives.

I also find it interesting that the V1 can join a domain and the V2 can't. This seems to me a step backwards in features. So you must trade the larger drive capability for the features...

I run a small computer consulting business, and one of the things I offer my customers is offsite backup. I was under the gun because the replication computer (backup of the backup's ) died, and I needed a quick cost effective alternative. Now that I am aware of the netgear devices (and this active forum), I will be better prepared to choose a model going forward. for the price of these devices, I am even considering offering to place a hardware device onsite as part of the service.