How to test Seagate 2TB HDD's in my RND4000?

You need to power-down the ReadyNAS then pull the drive(s) and attach them to a PC to run SeaTools.

FWIW I did this some time ago when I updated the firmware in my drives and it worked just fine. I only took (great) care to shutdown the ReadyNAS properly, then label each drive so that I put them back into the same postion in the NV+.

Of course you should look first at the ReadyNAS SMART and other logs to see if there's anything new there.

Seatools is Windows only. You can power down the NAS, and test one drive at a time in a PC. If you can't install them as internal drives, you can get an inexpensive USB->internal adapter kit (with power supply). Generally I use the power supply, but hook up the drive to my laptop using an esata->sata cable. In your case, simply powering up the drives externally might be enough to tell which one (if any) is making the noise.

Another option is to remove all the drives while powered down, and then start the unit with no drives at all. Though the system won't boot, if you hear the noise it would rule out the disk (and would likely be a failing fan). (To put it back, shut the unit down, and reinstall all drives in their original slots).

Be careful not to remove/reinsert disks with the ReadyNAS running, as you don't want the system to resync the drives if you think one might be failing.

BTW, if would be a good idea to refresh your backup before you do any of this.

Thanks for the good advice. I have a usb sata hub so I'll try it with that.
Regards

Please do let us know what you find

bigpallooka wrote:
I am hearing a random squeaking noise

It does occur to me that I recently tripped across a Seagate firmware update that suggested it might fix drives that "chirped". So depending on what drives you have you should look for a new FW update possibility, and do that when you pull the drives.

I do NOT know, however, that the FW update is possible via a USB adapter...