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Bains1's avatar
Bains1
Guide
Dec 08, 2015
Solved

ReadyNAS Duo -- Dead or Slow?

We have about 40 ReadyNAS Duo systems with smaller disks.  They are being phased out.  The idea was to get them ready and give them to local groups that could use the equipment. 

 

I took one of the devices, put in two disk drives that had been initialized and formated in a Windows workstation.  .

 

Powered up the system and it now has the LED blinking at once per second.  RAIDar cannot detect the device on the LAN

 

Dead??  Just slower than my short patience as it is initializing and synching the disks? 

 

I am trying to determine if it is worth reclaiming these devices or should they be discarded.

 

Any voice of experience would be appreciated. 

  • Kudos to BrianL for link to the article.  As StephenB points out the process is a PITA.  Although we got the system live and operational the time involved was in excess of an hour. 

     

    Looks like it will be more effective to toss the devices than try and repurpose them. 

     

    Thanks for you help.

4 Replies

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  • BrianL2's avatar
    BrianL2
    NETGEAR Employee Retired

    Hi Bains1,

     

    The drives need to be formatted using the device boot menu procedure. Check this article for more information.

     

    Hope this helps!

     

     

    Kind regards,

     

    BrianL
    NETGEAR Community Team

     

    • StephenB's avatar
      StephenB
      Guru - Experienced User

      There is a window at startup (5-10 minutes) where nothing happens - that gives the user a chance to go in with RAIDar and select Flexraid if they desire.

       

      But sometimes it thinks it can boot off a windows formatted disk, and that will fail.  If that's your situation, you can check the status using RAIDar 4.3.8 - you'll likely see "corrupt root".

       

      The fastest way is to unformat all the disks using the windows disk manager (deleting all partitions).  If there's sensitive info, use a tool which zeros the disks (WDC lifeguard and Seagate's Seatools can both do this).

       

      Either way the NAS will see blank disks, and automatically install properly (after the programned delay).

       

      You can use the front panel factory reset as BrianL suggests, but on the duo it's a bit torturous - paper clips in the back, and watching blinking lights on the front.  I wouldn't want to do 40 duos that way!.

       

       

    • Bains1's avatar
      Bains1
      Guide

      Kudos to BrianL for link to the article.  As StephenB points out the process is a PITA.  Although we got the system live and operational the time involved was in excess of an hour. 

       

      Looks like it will be more effective to toss the devices than try and repurpose them. 

       

      Thanks for you help.

      • StephenB's avatar
        StephenB
        Guru - Experienced User

        Bains1 wrote:

        Kudos to BrianL for link to the article.  As StephenB points out the process is a PITA.  Although we got the system live and operational the time involved was in excess of an hour. 

         


        If you have a USB-SATA adapter, you can unformat the disks assembly-line fashion, put them back into a duo as they finish, and power that duo back up.  That would be much faster than using the paper clips.

         

        Fastest of all is to offer the duos diskless.  That also ensures no information leakage from anything you might have left on the drives.

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