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Stuck in Booting....
Original ower of a mint NV+ RND4210v3 w/ 4 1TB drives from 2009. Yeah, it's old, but it had been a workhorse, no real issues until now. When I moved last year, I shut it down, wrapped it in layers ...
You should try the single drive in each slot test first to see if the problem is in the SATA backplane. If that works, then it could be a weak power supply, likely the 12V, but check them all.. It's not difficult to get to the internal power connector to measure voltages. It's a modified ATX configuration. Pin-out is here: ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf . Make your measurements under load, maybe with dioffering numbers of drives.
bhf1 wrote:
1. The basic process I am using is to insert 1 drive and do a Factory Reset. Once that is done and the NAS is running on one drive, hot insert a 2nd and let the volume expand. Then a third. In between I do a reboot with FS check. Does the expansion have to be done one drive at a time, or can I insert more than one drive at a time to expand the volume?
A simpler process is to power down the system, and move the disk to the next slot. If the system boots normally, then do some testing to read/write files to a share. NasTester can be used for that. http://www.808.dk/?code-csharp-nas-performance
Then power down, and and repeat until all the slots are tested.
No expansion would be needed with the simpler process, and your disk testing would be focused on the single slot you were testing.
But to answer your question, you can add more than one disk, but the expansion only does one disk at a time.
bhf1 wrote:
2. When I add the 2nd drive to expand the volume, FrontView shows the % complete, Time to complete, and the data rate. The time for this 2nd drive is about 5 hours and is very accurate. When I add the third drive, FrontView shows only % complete and Time to complete. Now the time is almost 9 hours, but it actually completes in about 3 hours. Is this normal?
I haven't tried this on an NV+, so I really know what the normal times are. That said, usually adding more disks will make the process take longer, so this doesn't sound right.
bhf1 wrote:
3. I have gotten the NAS up to 3 drives with normal operation twice. But when I hot insert the 4th drive the NAS locks up and I have to pull the power plug. I tried just removing the 4th drive and the NAS still sticks in booting. This issue is not drive or slot dependent. I suspect the power supply can't handle 4 drives. Any suggestions on where to look in the PS?
Sandshark is a good resource on this question.
bhf1 wrote:
4. The NAS seems very sensative to anything that might upset it. For example, instead of hot inserting a new drive to expand the volume, I inserted with power off then powered up. The NAS stuck in "Booting.... Please wait" and I had to start over. Is this normal?
5. The booting process looks like it has diagnostic info. For example, the fan switches from high speed to low speed. The power button light flashes at different rates. Is there anything that documents the booting process so this info could provide clues as to why the booting fails sometimes?
I suspect your first issue is because the disk was used, and was formerly in the array. When it's hot-inserted, the NAS will format it. When you cold-insert, the NAS has to try to figure out what you've done.
There are some tests done at powerup - I don't recall seeing a lot of documentation on this. But there are some documents that identify error codes. "Please wait" tells me that it's gotten past the power up checks, and is actually booting.
You should try the single drive in each slot test first to see if the problem is in the SATA backplane. If that works, then it could be a weak power supply, likely the 12V, but check them all.. It's not difficult to get to the internal power connector to measure voltages. It's a modified ATX configuration. Pin-out is here: ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf . Make your measurements under load, maybe with dioffering numbers of drives.
Thank you for the suggestions. I did some more testing and the crucial test was when I had 3 drives synced and and the NAS was fully operational, able to read and write files no problem. I hot pulled the 3rd drive and the NAS did not report the disk pull and instead locked up. (On a previous attempt, I hot pulled a disk and the NAS did nothing. I put it back and a minute later, the NAS reported the disk was missing. Then a minute later that it was inserted. Then it locked up.) Seems like the lock up happens if I just look at the NAS the wrong way. My only use of the NAS was for backup, so I am going to retire the NAS and use the drives as USB externa back up drives. Thank you again.
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