Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Oct 05, 2015

Ready NAS Ultra 6 -- dead drive but no warnings. Says I still have redundancy. How?

I have an Ultra 6 with 6 disks. The 5th disk is dead according to the Health screen in FrontView. However when I go to Volume Settings it says: "Status: Redundant" How can I have redundancy ...

Aspirant

Oct 05, 2015

Thank you for the post. I'm at least partially comforted in knowing my system might be okay, however after disabling the spin-down feature, I still have the Dead label.

Since my system seems to be at full capacity, says "Redundant" and has issued no direct warnings, I tend to think it's working.

Did your Ultra 4 behave normally except for the "dead" labels? Or were there other points of concern?

powellandy1

Virtuoso

Oct 06, 2015

I'm no expert but I think I may have had something similar.

Some drives - particularly the Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB firmware CC32/CC3C - can 'drop out' of an array and hence the NAS thinks it's dead. If you have CC3C you can ask Seagate for CC3D. I think the CC32's need RMAing.

Likewise if drives don't spin up in a certain time it can mimic the same thing.

Also if you have 6 drives in a dual redundant array you can lose one and still be fine.

Andy

StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Oct 06, 2015
Mildly off topic, but related:

If you are buying new disks, then pass on desktop drives (particularly "green" ones and Seagate "DM" drives).

NAS-purposed drives (WDC Red or Red Pro, Seagate VN) are similar in price, and usually have better warranties. In my experience the WDC Reds work out well.

Also, its always good to search this forum for the drive model you are considering before you purchase it. (google with site:community.netgear.com is likely better than the forum search tool).
- mncd
  Aspirant
  Oct 06, 2015
  Good advice. I've been using Reds for my other NAS and that's why I'm going to use to expand the Netgear.
mncd
Aspirant
Oct 06, 2015
I just have single disk redundancy which is why I find it weird. Even if I had dual -- I would think it would give a warning if one disk was out.
- StephenB
  Guru - Experienced User
  Oct 06, 2015
  mncd wrote:
  
  I just have single disk redundancy which is why I find it weird. Even if I had dual -- I would think it would give a warning if one disk was out.
  
  Yes, it should always warn. Something might have "glitched" driving the firmware into an inconsistent state. Someone from Netgear really should take a look - it isn't clear to me how the system would handle a drive replacement right now.