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Volume: The volume XXXX encountered an error and was made read-only. It is recommended to backup
Hello, I have just received this notification: Volume: The volume Volume1TB encountered an error and was made read-only. It is recommended to backup your data I just checked and the volume is mark...
Well, end of the story. For posterity:
when it happens, do not attempt anything except a backup copy.
Files should be ok (they were all fine in my case, no data loss), as someone else said in another similar thread office files won't open, but I think it's because office tries to lock them and it is not able to write on the share, but if you copy them somewhere else they will be ok.
But don't do anything else, after I tried to reboot the volume was completely gone, together with the data.
If this failure happens in the volume including the first disk, applications are lost too. Lesson learned here (it took a while): backup all configurations in a share, which is backed up again.
My two 6-months new WD HDD are now moved to external USB units for automatic backup and two new Seagate Ironwolf disks are in.
Rebuilding is in progress (my personal discovery, copy files from backup USB unit to volumes is a lot faster if done from SSH), let's hope it will last for a while...
Thanks again to StephenB for the support!
The WD40EFAX might be part of the equation. It uses SMR technology (which WD finally admitted last April), SMR drives slow down significantly during sustained writes, so they aren't great for RAID arrays. https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-smr-vs-cmr-tested-avoid-red-smr/2/ Personally I would replace it. You could reach out to WD, not sure if they would exchange it for a WD40EFRX or not. Given the controversy, and the fact that you are having some problems with your array, they might be open to that.
gpaolo wrote:
Oct 01 01:09:06 NAS4-CASA-GP kernel: BTRFS warning (device md126): Skipping commit of aborted transaction. Oct 01 01:09:06 NAS4-CASA-GP kernel: BTRFS: error (device md126) in cleanup_transaction:1864: errno=-5 IO failure
This of course is the error. There is a disk test function on the volume tab that you might want to run. But it is possible that the IO failure was a timeout of some kind (because of the major write slowdown SMRs can suffer from).
While it is likely possible that you could recover the volume with ssh, the best approach is to rebuild the array with s factory reset. If you are skilled with ssh, we can provide you with some steps to recover the array.
BTW, it isn't a great idea to post the log zip file publicly, as there is some leakage of private information. I've taken the liberty of redacting your download link.
Thank you Stephen, you are very helpful as usual.
I became aware of the EFAX story too late to send back the drive, but I might try to contact WD as you suggest.
Actually, since the drives are new, I was thinking of moving them to a USB unit and use them for backup of the NAS, and get two new drives...
I have the disk test in progress, do you know if, in case it is successful, will unlock the volume?
Thanks also for the link of the log packet, you are right.
gpaolo wrote:
I have the disk test in progress, do you know if, in case it is successful, will unlock the volume?
It won't.
As far as volumes go, there are three different categories of problems:
- disk failures
- RAID synchronization failures
- file system corruption.
These are often linked (disk failures can lead to RAID synchronization, or to file system corruption).
In your case, the file system corruption is what made the volume go read-only. That corruption remains, and a passed disk test won't undo it. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible that you could manually recover the volume with ssh. But there could be some lost data if you do that. The best approach is to rebuild the array and restore from the backup.
StephenB wrote:In your case, the file system corruption is what made the volume go read-only. That corruption remains, and a passed disk test won't undo it. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible that you could manually recover the volume with ssh. But there could be some lost data if you do that. The best approach is to rebuild the array and restore from the backup.
Ok, I'll do as you suggest. I have already ordered a new set of disks (Seagate this time...) and I will use these two WD as external backup, they should be fine working by themselves.
Two questions: the volume with the problems include the first and the second disk of the NAS. If I remove those, am I going to lose also the OS and do I have ot restart from scratch? Is the second volume also going to be affected?
All applications have disappeared now: is there any way to re-enable them so I can try to save the settings and avoid the complete reconfigurations of all services?
Thanks
gpaolo wrote:
Two questions: the volume with the problems include the first and the second disk of the NAS. If I remove those, am I going to lose also the OS and do I have ot restart from scratch? Is the second volume also going to be affected?
The OS partition is present on all your disks, and is mirrored (so it should be up do date on all disks, and the NAS should boot w/o the first two).
gpaolo wrote:
All applications have disappeared now: is there any way to re-enable them so I can try to save the settings and avoid the complete reconfigurations of all services?
Apps on the other hand are actually installed on one of the data volumes (generally the first one). So are the home folders (if you use them). Unfortunately Netgear doesn't provide a way to back up the apps. But it is possible to copy them to a folder on the other volume.
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