Hello Everybody,

This is a question to all other owners/users of a Zyxel NBG6716, regarding the Partition Layout of our device.
It has afaik(depending on the Hardware Revision) either 4MB+128MB or 16MB+256MB. In my case (I have the smaller one) the Partitions have the following layout:

  • mtd0=U-Boot

  • mtd1=U-Boot-Env

  • mtd2=RF data

  • mtd3=nbu

  • mtd4=rootfs_data (overlayFS)

  • mtd5=romd

  • mtd6=header

  • mtd7=rootfs

  • mtd8=header1

  • mtd9=rootfs1

  • mtd10=bu1

  • mtd11=bu2

In the Installation Instructions for this device it is suggested to simply write to mtd7 directly (replacing the modified OpenWRT originally installed there by ZyXel.

mtd -r write openwrt-15.05.1-ar71xx-nand-nbg6716-squashfs-factory.bin /dev/mtd7

I was curious about the remaining partitions (mtd7 only needs about 30MB of my Memory, the Overlay(mtd4) only has 2MB. mtd8 and mtd9 appear to be copies/alternatives of mtd6 and 7, but they are all empty on my device.
The Partitions mtd3, 10 and 11 sound like backup partitions (bu = Backup ?), but I couldn't figure out, when they are used.

But my device is still new (have only had it for a few days know, so maybe someone who has been using it longer, can tell me, what ZyXel uses these partitions for. Or maybe someone knows, what partitions with these names are supposed to do ?

Any information/suggestions would be very much appreciated.