Upgrade new box before or after installing drives?

[phaedrus]

Hi everyone,

today or tomorrow I will get my Thecus 5200 - the decision over Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ was significantly influenced by this forum! So BIG thanks to everybody here, especially Omega.

My question is: would it be wise to do the firmware upgrade to 1.00.07 before or after installing the disk drives (I plan a RAID 5 with 3 500GB Samsung HD501LJ.

Thanks in advance

Joachim

[omega]

Hi Joachim,

welcome to this forum....

If I remember all the postings to the issue correctly, then it would be the best to install the RAID first and then do the upgrade (but of course before you put any important data on the RAID so that in any case you're able to redo everything again without the need to care for your data).

The Thecus software stores data on the RAID too and I have the feeling that Thecus has mainly tested the upgrade procedure for devices which have already configured a RAID.

Andreas

P.S. This question and it's final answer would be worth to be included in the FAQ on the Thecus Wiki...

[RazzleUltra]

Done

[omega]

Hi razzleultra,

maybe you were too fast as I wrote "the final answer"....

That said, I'm not 100% sure if my answer is the final answer, maybe someone else being more involved in this issue has another hint....

Anyway, I appreciate your help in maintaining the FAQ very much, thanks again!

Andreas

[quick]

If I was starting from scratch with an 5200, old firmware and a couple of blank unused disks.

I would have:

• Inserted the disks
  
• Powered up the 5200
  
• Upgraded the firmware
  
• And then created an array
  

We must be able to assume the latest firmware are able to create an array.

Im a bit unsure if you need to have an existing array to get the firmware-upgrade-process working.... but I can't imagine it depends on disks in the box.

,

[pellicle]

As I received my n5200 today ahead of schedule and before my disks arrived you have a willing guinea pig. Installed firmware was .04. Installed .07 with no issues and LCD reported success. As foar as I can go with no disks the unit seems to be working properly. Web interface works fine Quick and easy

[phaedrus]

So, I got the box with version 1.00.04 yesterday and followed an approach similar to quick's, i.e. powered up the box, hot-installed the drives (but did not create an array) and updated the firmware to 1.00.07. Worked very well Thanks for your opinions!

Tonight I will create the RAID 5 array. Since all my data (480 GB) is concentrated on one 500 GB disk now, I will have to create the array with what is left: at first with 2 x 500 GB and 1 x 250 GB, then I will copy all the data from the external drive to the array and then replace the 250 GB with the then empty 500 GB disk and perform a RAID expansion. Hope this works equally well.

Joachim

[pellicle]

After upgrading from .04 as received to .07 with no drives I now have installed drives and built the raid. Installed several modules including PERL, Slimserver, Info and IMGDUP and downloaded several hundred gigs of music the update with no drives went fine. I would expect so as all the firmware update resides on the IDE flashcard.

Cheers.

[foolinator]

When I got mine, I first upgraded to .07, no problems.

For now, it doesn't matter. However, with any hardware, since upgrades typically involve fixing bugs, it's probably best to upgrade.

That, of course, depends on the vendor who made your hardware. If it's a new upgrade, it's best to give a little breathing room first. It's never fun to be the beta tester on an expensive system

Finally, if your system is working fine and a new upgrade comes out, unless the upgrade addresses major security issues it's best NOT to upgrade right away. If it's not broke, why fix it

[phaedrus]

Just stumbled upon it, maybe we should keep this as a hint:

thecususergroup.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=n5200installations&action=display&thread=1168992665&page=1#1169167012

See reply #8 from ondro727

(sorry, but I do not know how I can link that threat in a better way)

Achim