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Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Mediasail
Aspirant

Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

I just wanted to submit a support ticket but apparently Netgear abandoned individual customer support altogether, so this is my only option.

 

The problem is that, within 3-4 months, a second Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD has failed without warning. Now, at first the Readynas seemed bricked, but somehow it got back on-line again. Now, the web interface tells me the Readynas is healthy, the volumes are ok but still I can't access files on that drive. 

 

Problem #1: I can still 'see' the failed HDD and  its contents but trying to copy off the files to another destination results in a network error under Windows (10). How can I rescue these files, either from within the ReadyNAS or externally?

 

Problem #2: As this is the second HDD failure (the first was immediately total, I had to bin it), how can I avoid failure of the other 'Cudas'? Both failures occured on DLNA access, i.e. playing a video file over the network. Is ReadyDLNA somehow responsible for the failures or could it be incompatibilities with Seagate Barracudas (they are on the hardware compatibility list, however).

 

All 4 volumes are configured as simple individual volumes, no raid or anything, though they are marked XRAID.

 

I fervently hope that these disastrous problems can be resolved in this way, as there's no real customer support from Netgear (which, I may add, is disastrous in its own right).

 

Thanks for any help offered!

Marco

 

Message 1 of 15
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Hello Mediasail,

 

Welcome to the community!

 

May I ask for the case number that support gave you?

 

You can use USB disk plugged in straight to the NAS and configure back up job to get the files. Or connect the NAS straight the computer instead. 

 

Make sure as well to use disks that are listed on HCL

 

Regards,

 

Message 2 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Thanks for your reply JennC!

 

As the time of buying these Seagate Barracudas were on the HCL, I checked. I gather that Netgear even shipped a number of RN104's with those same 'Cudas.

 

Apparently, I'm not entitled to individual support (although the ReadyNAS is still well within warrenty) so I can't get a case number.

 

But back to the problem. I will try to a backup through USB but as the Readynas is *very* sluggish at the moment, I have a feeling that it isn't going to work.

 

How do I hook up the Readynas directly to the computer? Ethernet-port to ethernet-port?

 

Thanks, Marco

Message 3 of 15
BrianL2
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Hi Mediasail,

 

With regard to the USB backup issue, load the official 6.4.1 firmware in your unit. The ReadyNAS to PC connection is through LAN.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

BrianL
NETGEAR Community Team

Message 4 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

I have not been able to rescue the contents of the failed drive. As this is the second 3TB Seagate Barracuda to fail in my RN104, is this a documented "issue"? Furthermore, do other 'Cudas (2TB, 4 TB etc) exhibit the same issue with the Readynas RN104? This is really important as I have 3 more 'Cudas in my RN104!

 

Thanks, marco

Message 5 of 15
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Hi Mediasail,

 

Are these 2 3TB Seagate disks identical? What's the model/make?

 

Regards,

Message 6 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Hi JennC,

 

Yes, they are identical. When I purchased the ReadyNAS and the HDDs, I checked the HCL and they were on it. The disk type is: Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001.

 

Thanks, 

 

Marco

Message 7 of 15
StephenB
Guru

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

You might find this article interesting: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/  BackBlaze's environment is quite different from a home ReadyNAS, but still...

 

I wouldn't replace working drives, but if you see more failures I suggest WD30EFRX or ST3000VN000 instead of "DM".  Based on posts here, I'd say users have had good results with both.  NAS purposed drives have better warranties than desktop models, and are tuned by the drive manufacturer for NAS.  

 

 

Message 8 of 15
JennC
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Hello Mediasail,

 

You also might want to check HCL before buying HDDs for your ReadyNAS.

 

Regards,

Message 9 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

JennC: I mentioned a couple of times already: the 'CUDAs were on the HCL list at the time of purchasing; being a good boy, I checked at the time. Now, they are no longer on the list. 

 

That BackBlaze story is horrifying! That said, I've been around computers for longer than I care to remember, and there is not one manufacturer (and I've had them all) I've encountered that did not have drives fail.

 

I also do think that NAS devices should be better at signalling imminent drive failure. My RN104 stated that all was OK and healthy when in fact the drive had already failed. Furthermore, the RN104 file system (btfrs) makes it virtually impossible to try to recover files on the failed drive. A much safer choice would have been EXT3 or 4; it is universally supported. Support for Netgear RN104's file system is non-existent. And really, there's nothing you can't do with ext that you can with btfrs. Yes, really! 

Message 10 of 15
StephenB
Guru

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail


@Mediasail wrote:

And really, there's nothing you can't do with ext that you can with btfrs. Yes, really! 


The snapshot feature and the bitrot protection both depend on btrfs, and neither can be done with ext.

Message 11 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

That may be true but does that compensate for the non-existent support? And, you could implement this functionality with additional software in the system (I've seen snapshot functionality implemented outside the file system). Yes, it's more work and yes, it may impart system performance, but hey, at least we could recover our precious files! Actually, the failed drive had Snapshot/Bit Rot on, but how did that help me with a failed drive?

 

I've been using another NAS with ext3/ext4 for more than 5 years now, never had a single problem (I'll spare you the make & model). And I can take a HDD from that NAS, connect it via an USB interface to my Windows computer and use Ext2fsd to read, write, modify any and all files on that HDD. Or use data recovery software to rescue contents because nearly all data recovery software supports Ext2, 3, 4 etc. How's that for support & security?

 

Sorry that I sound a bit p*ssed, but losing 3TB worth of contents is no joke.

 

Anyway, as a last resort I'm going to try install OpenSuse on an unused PC as it seems to include the btfsr file system. Then hookup the failed drive via USB and see if I can rescue any files. I'll post here if this gets any results.

 

Thanks for your attention!

Marco

 

Message 12 of 15
StephenB
Guru

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

Not sure if you've seen this already: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Btrfsck

 

Also, livecd claims btrfs recovery support: http://www.livecd.com/partition-recovery.html

 


@Mediasail wrote:
 Sorry that I sound a bit p*ssed, but losing 3TB worth of contents is no joke.

  


I do understand that pain, and I do hope you recover the data.  Though the better answer would have been to have a backup plan in place.  Data recovery is expensive and uncertain no matter what file system you use.  And often disks that fail can't be read at all. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, if you trust your data to a single device (disk or NAS) you will at some point lose it.  Though you had good luck with your ext setup on the other NAS, it is in fact just that - good luck.  Plenty of people here (and in other NAS forums) have lost files stored in ext file systems.

 

BTRFS is at most a side-bar here.  Most (perhaps all) new linux distributions include it, and other NAS vendors (e.g. synology) have also begun using it. Recovery tools might be lagging, but that seems to be already changing.


@Mediasail wrote:

 And, you could implement this functionality with additional software in the system (I've seen snapshot functionality implemented outside the file system).  


You can do snapshots externally, but only CoW file systems (btrfs, zfs) can provide snapshots with the features that OS6 has.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message 13 of 15
Mediasail
Aspirant

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

WOW! Looks like exactly what I need. I'm going to try it. THANKS, Stephen!

 

As I said before, I'm sorry if I sound p*ssed, but I was very frustrated, particularly as it was the second drive to fail. I could not help but feel that the file system played a role in all this grief, as there was no advance notice of failure, only after it had already failed. But that's pure speculation on my part and probably uncalled for.

 

I post my findings with the recovery software here.

 

Thanks!

Marco

Message 14 of 15
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Readynas 104: Second Seagate Barracuda to fail

In my experience BTRFS is a more reliable filesystem than EXT4.

 

And there are good free native Linux tools for BTRFS for attempting to recover data if it is necessary.

 

The drive model is the problem not the filesystem. There can be a tendency to blame anything perceived as new as causing problems that are encountered, but that is jumping to conclusions.

 

Disks can and do fail at any time. We use SMART stats and tests to get warning if a disk may be starting to fail, but disks can fail without any warning. That's one reason why backups are important. Never store important data on just the one device, no matter what that device is.

 

Your 104 came with a 90 day limited support warranty from the date of purchase, the limited hardware warranty is 3 years.

With an expired support warranty you can purchase additional support if you need it.  Depending on the hardware warranty status, there may be per incident support and/or support contracts available. We have a separate contract for data recovery.

 

In any case the support warranty doesn't cover data recovery. We sell data recovery services in the rare cases where it is needed because there are customers that want it, and it is better for all concerned than not providing data recovery services at all.

You can purchase data recovery from us, but data recovery may be unsuccessful. We cannot do physical repairs to disks. Our data recovery is software based. If physical repairs to disks are needed then 3rd party data recovery is the only option.

 

Of course you can try recovering data yourself, however if you fail and make things worse it may make professional data recovery more costly and less likely to succeed.

Message 15 of 15
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