frequent network dropoffs

Do you recall what firmware it is running? Also did you upgrade the memory?

Firmware is 4.1.10, updated a few weeks ago. No memory upgrade.

When you can access it, you should look at the SMART and network stats. Failing disks can lock up, which can create a network dropout.

A full OS partition is also possible, that would probably require an on-line support ticket to deal with.

Was this problem happening before the 4.1.10 upgrade?

BTW, it would be prudent to backup up the data (if you haven't).

Yes, this was happening before the 4.1.10 update.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by "SMART and network stats". Could you elaborate? Thanks.

If you log into frontview, you can see both disk SMART stats and network stats.

To see SMART stats, click on status, then health, and then on the SMART+ buttons for each disk. A pop-up will appear showing you the stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

To see network stats, click on network, interfaces, and "show errors". You probably should "clear errors" first, and let it run for a while.

Got it. Thanks. SMART data look good for all disks -- all values 0 except for Start Stop Count, Power On Hours, Power Cycle Count, Airflow Temp & Temp.

Network shows some TCP Retransmits and Unrecovered TCP Retransmits. I have since moved the NAS from one router to the other, disabled journaling, and turned off all the streaming services, which I wasn't using. So far, it seems to be more stable and is even happily doing a TimeMachine backup as I type this.

Skimming through the logs, I wondered if any of these entries are cause for concern:

daemon.log

Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.3 on eth0.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.3.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: iface.c: interface_mdns_mcast_join() called but no local address available.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: Interface eth0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: New relevant interface eth0.IPv4 for mDNS.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: Joining mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.3.
Dec 11 10:24:56 nas-01 avahi-daemon[838]: Registering new address record for 192.168.1.3 on eth0.
Dec 11 10:25:10 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[1724]: Listening on 192.168.1.3:50000
Dec 11 10:25:10 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[1724]: setsockopt - IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP: Address already in use
Dec 11 10:25:10 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[1724]: Failed to add membership for address 192.168.1.3

httpd_errors.log

apache-ssl: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 192.168.1.3 for ServerName

Bad free() ignored (PERL_CORE) at /frontview/lib/Frontview.pm line 2.

spool_error.log

warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
job 127 at 2012-12-11 15:04

system.log

Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.3 on eth0.
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.3.
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: iface.c: interface_mdns_mcast_join() called but no local address available.
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: Interface eth0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[2142]: received signal 15, exiting
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[2142]: setsockopt - IP_MULTICAST_IF: Cannot assign requested address
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[2142]: bind: Cannot assign requested address
Dec 11 12:21:36 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[2142]: shutdown: sendto: Network is unreachable
Dec 11 12:21:37 nas-01 kernel: linked, 1000mbps mode
Dec 11 12:21:37 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: New relevant interface eth0.IPv4 for mDNS.
Dec 11 12:21:37 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: Joining mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.3.
Dec 11 12:21:37 nas-01 avahi-daemon[835]: Registering new address record for 192.168.1.3 on eth0.
Dec 11 12:21:44 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[24162]: Listening on 192.168.1.3:50000
Dec 11 12:21:44 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[24162]: setsockopt - IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP: Address already in use
Dec 11 12:21:44 nas-01 upnpd(eth0)[24162]: Failed to add membership for address 192.168.1.3

user.log

Dec 10 18:14:27 nas-01 RAIDiator: gmac.agent: "start-stop-daemon -S -q -x /usr/sbin/mt-daapd" failed to start.
Dec 10 18:16:07 nas-01 RAIDiator: gmac.agent: "nice -n 5 /usr/sbin/apache-ssl -f /etc/frontview/apache/httpd.conf" failed to start.

And here's the info about my unit:

Product: ReadyNAS NV+
RAIDiator Version: 4.1.10 [1.00a043]
RAID Info: Level 5
Hard Disk Brand, Model & Capacity: Seagate ST3250620AS [232 GB]
ReadyNAS Security Mode: User
No. Hard Disk currently installed: 4
Network Router/Switch Info: Linksys BEFW11S4
Memory: 256 MB [2.5-3-3-7]
Jumbo frames off.

I'm not an expert at diagnosing the logs, hopefully one of the netgear support folks will review them.
spool_error.log is completely normal. When did you move the router connection? Some of these messages might be related to that.

Do you have a UPS? If you are running w/o journaling it might be a good idea to have one.

BTW Your router is currently 100 mbit. So your speed limit would be about 10-11 MB/sec.

All the log entries are from before I moved the NAS. I am running with an UPS, so I don't feel anxious about no journaling.

Given how much better it's been performing, I bet there's something wonky going on with the other router. I was planning to replace it, so that might happen sooner than I'd imagined. Thanks for your attention to my issue!

I doubt this is causing your issue, but might help reliability / stability / throughput on your network. Try doing the following command in a DOS prompt from the machine which is experiencing connectivity issues:

ping /f /l 1472 ip.of.router

ping /f /l 1472 ip.of.nas

If you get the "packet needs to be fragmented but DF set" message, you may want to reduce the size of the MTU on that machine to a level where the above message doesn't occur, and add 28 to the number that worked and use this as the machine's MTU.

A lot of people have posted issues with performance on the Sparc NAS's and Windows 7 in the past. Not sure how you'd change this in OSX, as I've never had/used a Mac, but for those that WERE experiencing poor performance, setting the MTU lower did help, me included when i was using Wireless.