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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS 516 Best Practice
Two questions: First, I'm about to replace a disk (smaller disk with a bigger one). Is it best to shut down the box (to take out a 4TB drive and replace it with an 8TB) or can you simply do a hot sw...
Blues11 wrote:
Is it possible that the 4TB drive that just died and the newly inserted 8TB drive are both bad drives? Should I simply purchase another 8TB drive and expect that to work?
Anything is possible, and sometimes new drives do fail. But another (perhaps more likely) possibility is that the 4 TB drive failed before the newly inserted 8 TB drive was able to complete the sync. So the 8 TB drive might be ok.
You should power down the NAS and test the drives in a PC with vendor tools (Seatools for Seagate, Lifeguard for Western Digital). Don't mix up the drives - label them by slot. You can connect the drives to the PC using either SATA or a USB adapter/dock.
Do you have a backup of the data?
How many drives were in the RN516 volume, and what was the RAID mode?
Unfortunately, I'm in a completely Mac environment with no other non-SSD machines. I have an old ReadyNAS (6310) that is used as a nightly backup device just for the ReadyNAS 516 plus an external USB device that used to have the two 8TB drives but now has one 12TB drive in it with another backup. The nightly backup to the old NAS failed last night, but nothing important was not backed up.
To try to test the newly failed 8TB drive I put it in the external USB device (configured now as JBOD) and it formatted fine on a Mac Mini. As I recall none of the drive test tools are available for the Mac.
So, now that the 8TB drive failed in the NAS, but formatted OK on the Mac, I really don't have many choices.
As a precaution I just ordered a new 8TB drive that'll be delivered today. I suppose I'll leave the according-to-the-NAS "failed" 8TB drive in the USB device and install the new 8TB drive when it arrives later today.
FYI: the 516 had five disks (Slot 1: empty, Slot 2: Seagate 8TB, Slot 3: Western Digital 4TB, Slot 4: Seagate 8TB (new), Slot 5: Western Digital 4TB (that died last night), Slot 6: Seagate 8TB), all from the approved Netgear list.
Again, thank you.
Blues11 wrote:
FYI: the 516 had five disks (Slot 1: empty, Slot 2: Seagate 8TB, Slot 3: Western Digital 4TB, Slot 4: Seagate 8TB (new), Slot 5: Western Digital 4TB (that died last night), Slot 6: Seagate 8TB), all from the approved Netgear list.
Ok, so five disks total, likely in XRAID.
When you replace a disk, the contents on the replacement is rebuilt from the remaining disks in the array. If one of those disks fails during the rebuilding, then you lose the volume. Loosing the new 8 TB drive normally won't cause data loss in that situation. So it's more likely that the 4 TB drive failed, and the new 8 TB is actually ok.
One thing you could potentially try is power down the NAS and restore the 4 TB drive you removed when you put in the 8 TB drive. Also remove the 4 TB drive that failed last night. Then power up, and see if that gives you access to your data. If that works, then update your backup immediately.
After that you could try doing a factory default with the two new drives in place. If that builds successfully, you can run a disk test from the volume menu settings. Then check the smart stats on all the drives. If the smart stats look good, then load the data back onto the volume.
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