Hope to Get Data & Volume: Volume Degraded --> No Volume

I wish you'd posted here before you started replacing disks.

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Augestflex wrote:

I went for the 8TB WD Red Plus NAS Drive (bummer as I would later learn.) Didn't know it wasn't compatible at the time.

 

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WD Red Plus drives are compatible, even though the current model number isn't on the HCL.  Netgear is quite slow to add new models.  In general NAS-purposed drives (WD Red Plus, IronWolf), and enterprise class are all compatible.  The exception is the current WD Red line - which all use SMR technology.

I don't know who you talked to in support, but I believe they gave you wrong information.  For some years now, Netgear mods have described the HCL as a more of a guide than a true compatibility list.

In any event, there's nothing in your narrative (other than the one comment from chat) that suggests the 8 TB WD Plus drives caused any of the problems you are seeing.  You began by adding a disk instead of replacing it, then later on panicked and put a failing drive back into the NAS.  Then a second drive (the oldest disk) failed.  So it appears to me (w/o logs of course) that the problems are all caused by issues with two of the original drives.

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Augestflex wrote:

 

Then I hot removed #2 from the NAS:

 

Current state:

Bay #1-4 TB WD Red [Compatible]
Bay #2-EMPTY
Bay #3-8 TB WD Red [Compatible]
Bay #4-8 TB WD Red [NOT Compatible]
Bay #5-EMPTY
Bay #6-EMPTY

 

At this point I received a Volume Degraded message, which frankly freaked me out.
After doing some web searching without a ton of luck I then made the next big mistake hoping to remove the volume degraded message.

 

I put #2 back into the NAS ...

 

Current state:
Bay #1-4 TB WD Red [Compatible] - FAILED/DEAD
Bay #2-8 TB WD Red [Compatible](increasing reallocated sector count)
Bay #3-8 TB WD Red [Compatible]
Bay #4-8 TB WD Red [NOT Compatible]
Bay #5-EMPTY
Bay #6-EMPTY

 

Once Restoring data finished the volume was changed to DEAD.

Was the volume dead at this point?  Or just disk 1?

It looks like what happened is that disk 1 failed (perhaps stressed by by multiple resyncs).  If it failed during the resync of disk 2, then the volume would have failed.  If it failed after the resync completed, then the volume would not have failed.

I'm thinking disk 1 failed after the resync completed, and that the volume wasn't dead.  If it was dead, you would not have seen any data on it from Windows (and in fact you could).  The disk errors on disk 2 could have resulted in the missing data you saw.

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Augestflex wrote:

 

Unfortunately since taking the actions with support from the chat option, when I start up the NAS I receive the following notifications in the Admin UI:

• Remove inactive volumes to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3,4.
• Detected increasing reallocated sector count [####] on disk 2 messages

 

I can understand the issues with disk #1, #2, #4, but am confused as #3 should be okay. I even feel like #2 should be okay just with warnings...

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Is it still showing disk 1 as dead?

RAID spreads the data evenly across all four disks.  One potential problem is when data isn't written for some reason, the four disks can get out of sync.  (There are counters on each disk, so this can be detected).  When this happens, the NAS will give you the inactive volume message.

Whether the errors on disk 2 should be understood "warnings" depends on how many there are - and also how rapidly they are increasing.  Can you let us know what the counts are?

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Augestflex wrote:

 

Thoughts on how to proceed?

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Honestly, it depends on how much your data is worth to you.  You've ended up in a bit of a mess, and it might not be easy to untangle.  

One possibility here is that you will need to start over - doing a factory reset with all the new drives in place.  Then gather what you can of the old data from PCs, USB drives, or whatever other sources you have.

First,I wouldn't replace disk 2 at this point.

Second, if your data is worth the cost, then you should get professional data recovery.   Netgear offers a recovery service, you can see details here: https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service  Note that doing more on your own might make things worse.  If professional recovery is the right path, then you should start down it right away.

If professional recovery is unaffordable, then I'd suggest that you should get a new set of logs, and ask one of the mods (perhaps Marc_V ) to review both the original set you provided support, and also the current ones.  If you have case numbers, you could maybe also give them that info, as they can review the case info that support has.

Another thing you could try is 

• power down
• remove disk 1
• reboot in READ-ONLY mode (ask if you don't know how to do that).

and see you can access any data.  If you can, then power down immediately, and post back.