Readynas 102 not backing up and freezing after upgrade to 6.4.2

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YorkBoy wrote:

 

 Does it hang your 102?

 

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There was no lockup, but the backup speed dropped and the web ui seemed less responsive.

Running the same Music backup  to the same drive connected to the USB front port resulted in

Music: 58.2 GB - 15,414 Files, 974 Folders

2:09:16 run time, transfer speed ~7.7 MB/sec

A big dropoff from 23.5 MB/sec.

Good morning.

Thank you for this. Interesting that it didn't hang your 102. My 102 has frozen on using the front socket everytime I have tried to use it since 6.4.0.However interesting it slowed down considerably.

When you reported speeds yesterday on using the rear sockets, exactly what were you backing up to and what speed were those devices?

Ditto the front socket?

Thanks

John

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YorkBoy wrote:

 

 

When you reported speeds yesterday on using the rear sockets, exactly what were you backing up to and what speed were those devices?

 

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For both front and rear sockets, I used a Crucial SSD drive in a Patriot Gauntlet USB 3 enclosure.  I measured write speeds on Windows 7 of ~175 MB/sec with NASTester.  

My USB 3 testing options are limited - the Gauntlet is 2.5", and the only 2.5" drive I have available to test with is the Crucial SSD.

Stephen.

Thank you.

I was thinking about my rear USB 3 sockets backing up to WD USB 3 hard drives.

I was getting around 140GB backed up in 1hr 5 mins on the last time under 6.2.5.

I'm now getting 145GB backed up in 4hrs 24mins under 6.4.2.

So my original setup, 140GB in 65 mins works out at around 35MB/sec, still much faster than your latest results using the beta firmware.

John

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YorkBoy wrote:

 

 

So my original setup, 140GB in 65 mins works out at around 35MB/sec, still much faster than your latest results using the beta firmware.

 

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Are you using NTFS formatting or EXT?

Apologies, I should have said.

NTFS.

2.5" drives WD 1TB USB 3.

Just to chip in my drives are 3tb WD formatted to NTFS as well.

Backing up about 250GB, used to take 4 hours on 6.2.5 and has now never backed up completely overnight on 6.4.2 as it ground to a halt and had to be stopped after 15 hours as it reduced the NAS to being unusable.

Currently now backing up across the network to the same drive connected to a PC and taking around 4 hours to back up.

Hi Barryd

When I back up using the front socket even though it freezes the NAS it does actually appear to start ok and does backup a few folders amounting to perhaps 1GB before feezing the NAS.

This event seems to be exactly the same scenario as your issue on the rear sockets so can you confirm if any backups are actually taking place?

The fact that my rear socket backups do work, albeit taking four times as long makes me wonder if that's simply because I only back up 145GB, that being the entire contents of my NAS. It would be interesting to see what would happen if I had substantially more data being backed up.

What response (if any) have you had from your support request?

I am going to repeat my comments that for a moderator here to confirm he sees the same failures as us and for a Netgear engineer to report the same on a single test of a backup on a 102 makes me seriously question the quality of the firmware testing regime. After all people who have a NAS are the kind of people who take the safety of their data seriously and those people are going to perform back ups. It stuns me that it seems backing up on a 102 was never checked using the 6.4.0 series of firmware.

John

Hi Barry

You know I was thinking just no, I bought this 102 to replace my earlier V1 Readynas and I really wonder why I bothered.

The old V1 was never an issue, ran perfectly for years backing up every night.

The 102 has been hassle since I bought it and actually the very first issue I had was with using the USB sockets. On inserting a USB stick into the front socket all went well until I ejected the stick, then although the stick was correctly ejected and removed it still appeared in shares. In discussions with Netgear it was called a ghost share and I waited perhaps months for a fix that actually worked.

I have had other issues with the 102 causing me to lose data and I had to perform a complete reinstall.

Seriously thinking today whether to get the old V1 up and running again.

John

The only response I have had from my support request was asking for the serial number which I provided when I originally posted it and if I was the registered user of the product.

I think this NAS does start to back up through the front usb but I am not sure at what stage it locks up.

I think through the back ports overnight it got about as far as 100gb or so but I Cannot be certain before I had to shut it down. 

I too used to be very happy with Readynas and I recommended them and indeed my company resells them.  At the moment I would be reluctant to supply any more units and I am advising clients not to upgrade their firmware if they have a working system at the moment but as was the case with this particular NAS the end user just went ahead and upgraded it which to be fair they should be able to do in confidence that its been properly tested.

I have always supplied and recommended Netgear products and not just NAS equipment as they are generally very good and I would like to continue doing so but this episode with the NAS and the time its taking to resolve has done nothing to boost my confidence to be fair.

If Netgear want to supply me with some kit I would be quiet happy to test them!  :D

Hi

Considering 6.4.0 was released in October then it sure is taking a long time to resolve the issues.

I totally fail to understand why it is that there isn't a simple authorised route back to 6.2.5. Now I know it's supposed to be possible but before I do it I would like to know if I'm going to get myself into any issues. Let's be honest what help am I likely to get if I downgrade and brick my NAS?

However given that it seems so many people have issues it's about time Netgear came clean and gave us a route to do this so we can all get our systems working again.

Once it's running properly I can't see I'm going to ever update the firmware again and please don't anyone tell me that I should because of all the new features I would get because one feature I definitely don't want is a NAS that fails to back up!

I just wonder if rather than keep the firmware and interface simple they are trying to provide too many features most of which the average person doesn't want or need and in the process have ruined some pretty basic and necessary facilities. I don't suppose we'll ever know.

John

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StephenB wrote:

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Running the same Music backup  to the same drive connected to the USB front port resulted in

Music: 58.2 GB - 15,414 Files, 974 Folders

2:09:16 run time, transfer speed ~7.7 MB/sec

 

A big dropoff from 23.5 MB/sec.

 

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Just wanted to add that I reformatted the SSD to ext4, and tested both USB ports again.  The results are here: https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-Beta-Release/6-5-0-T322-RN100-series-front-port-USB-performance-is-sluggish/td-p/1061142

Morning

Interesting as you say. I suppose given that the front socket is USB 2 and the rear USB 3 then some drop off is to be expected.

Thinking about this last night, not only did I get the ghost shares issue using my front socket I have also had problems under at least one firmware issue getting any USB stick recognised. I found that the insertion of the drive would not be recognised and I would have to try again and again. Strangely under 6.2.5 no problem and as I keep saying everything worked a treat.

A question. If I attempt to go back to 6.2.5 am I likely to brick my NAS?

John

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YorkBoy wrote:

A question. If I attempt to go back to 6.2.5 am I likely to brick my NAS?

 

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It looks like one recent poster just did.  Though it did work for most people.

You could alternatively reformat the disk to ext, and get the paragon ext tools on the PCs so you can read the backups.  That would cost $20 and might give you full performance w/o lockups.

Thanks Stephen. The thought of bricking my NAS doesn't appeal and neither does paying out good money to enable a workaround for a problem which isn't of my making.

While it works I'll leave well alone and hope that Netgear will come up with a solution.

However i have spoken to a person in consumer law and would point out that users of 102 units which freeze or fail to work as intended now have units which are not fit for purpose becuase they no longer comply with their sold specification. This potentially opens other possibilites for owners. I don't expect you to comment on this, I'm just stating this for the record shall we say.

Thanks again.

John

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YorkBoy wrote:

Thanks Stephen. The thought of bricking my NAS doesn't appeal and neither does paying out good money to enable a workaround for a problem which isn't of my making.

 

  

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Your choice, just pointing out that is an option.  Even with 6.2.x, ext formatting would give the fastest USB backup speed.

Another (free) option is to fire up your NV+, and use it to back up your RN102 over a gigabit network. 

Stephen

I have over the last few days carried out some tests which I have documented and I think they are if nothing else  very interesting.

I have passed them (in pdf) to Netgear support but wonder if you would care to look at them?

John

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YorkBoy wrote:

Stephen

 

I have over the last few days carried out some tests which I have documented and I think they are if nothing else  very interesting.

 

I have passed them (in pdf) to Netgear support but wonder if you would care to look at them?

 

John

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Sure, can you PM me the pdf?

Just to remind the support team at Netgear that I am having exactly the same problems as Yorkboy with a 102 after upgrading to 6.4.2.

the symptoms are exactly the same although I am able to either manually or using third party software backup the nas across the network.  The USB drives on the nas are unusable for backup now.  As with Yorkboy the admin screen and access to the nas is impossibly slow when it is attempting to backup and the unit eventually freezes.

Hi Barry

Thanks for this.

For other readers.

Basically over the last two days I have carried out tests on my 102 NAS using the front USB socket.

The results are that from all five tests (using different USB sticks before anyone jumps in and grasps at straws by suggesting it's my stick that's the problem), in each case the NAS slowed down considerably. Sometimes it recovered after the backup, sometimes it didn't and finally froze requiring the power to be removed by removing the power plug as both the admin page and the power button failed to function.

As a result of this I have also discovered that backing up across my network also takes considerably longer. My last NAS to NAS backup in November 2016 (prior to 6.4.0) took just over 5 hours, the latest took five times as long in fact 29 hours to back up 143GB. So the same factors which are increasing the time taken to backup via the rear USB sockets appear to affect the NAS to NAS backup as well.

However, no doubt someone from Netgear will tell me it's me or my methods....