ReadyNAS Pro 6 - Disk showing "dead" even though bay is empty

Zeroing the superblock removes the "markers" that it belongs to that RAID.  So, you should then be able to re-add it to the array or make it a spare, after which it shoud add itself in place of the missing one.  You may have to re-boot after zeroing and/or after making it a spare.  There is likely a better way than re-booting, but I've not discovered it.

Some things I read regarding MDADM indicated a drive should be made a spare instead of directly adding it.  That didn't seem to be necessary in OS6, but might be in older Debian distros.

Well, I think I have "bricked" my RNP!

I decided to bite the bullet and install OS6 but it failed with some error message and stopped at 92%.

Now, nothing I do will get the RNP to boot.  I can get to the BOOT menu, but that is about it.

One concern I had before starting the upgrade was memory - I only have 1GB installed.  I tried to find out if OS6 had a minimum but I couldn't find an answer.

I did read that one user was able to recover from BOOT failure by wiping the root volume and putting a fresh copy of the OS on it.

Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Can you try

• zeroing (or unformatting) a disk
• put just that disk in the NAS
• Power it up again

See if that completes the install.  If it does you can then add the other disks.

---

AndyWheatcroft wrote:

I tried to find out if OS6 had a minimum but I couldn't find an answer.

 

---

You can only go by the existing platforms.  The RN100 has 512 MB.  The other platforms have two GB or more.

It's pretty clear that the RN100 doesn't really have enough to run all the services well.  Many folks are fine with 2 GB (RN200, RN300, some RN400 models).

Based on posts here, I'd say the 1 GB will do, upgrading the memory to 2 GB is a good idea.

Hi Stephen,

You guys are brilliant!  I removed all the disks and inserted a blank, unformatted disk and it booted into 6.9.5!!

So I plan to wipe all the original disks and re-insert them before I do any configuration.

By the way, I inserted the blank drive into Slot 1 and it is working, so my 4.2.31 configuration just got messed up when the old drive died.

Hopefully, OS6 is more robust.

I did some reseach on memory and my concern is that all the DDR2 that is available is dual channel but I believe the RNP requires single channel memory which appears impossible to obtain.  Am I correct?

Thanks again for monitoring my painful crash.

Andy.

---

AndyWheatcroft wrote:

I did some reseach on memory and my concern is that all the DDR2 that is available is dual channel but I believe the RNP requires single channel memory which appears impossible to obtain.  Am I correct?

 

---

Sandshark is a better resource on hardware stuff than me, but I believe the dual channel/single channel configuration is more about the CPU chipset and system board than it is about the memory itself.   The Pro-6 does have two memory slots, but I haven't researched whether it the system board accesses it in dual channel mode or not.

You're looking for 240 pin DDR2 800 PC2 6400 Ram.

This should work I think, and would get you 4 GB of Ram for about $16.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0050D6KXI/ref=olp_f_new?ie=UTF8&f_new=true

Dual channel is a system board configuration.  Memory comes as "dual channel" only in that it is sold as two matched sticks.  The Pro6 motherboard is not dual channel.

Thanks Sandshark for the clarification - I have ordered two 2GB sticks.

My RNP is back in operation although it took 18 hours for it to build out my 5 x 3TB drives as a RAID6 volume.

When I started the re-sync, I had the side covers off and the drives over-heated in approximately 40 minutes, causing an automatic shutdown.  After putting the sides back on and setting the fan to "Cool", I haven't had any overheating issues.  I had replaced the main fan some time ago with a Noctura NF-S12A FLX 120mm Case Fan. It is so quiet, even in "cool" mode, and that seems to be keeping the disk temps down to around 50C.

Last question (hopefully) - I have read that some folks have upgraded their CPUs. I have no idea what is on my MB.  How can I deteremine what a good replacement CPU is for my board?

Many thanks,

Andy.

If you have a "Pro6", as opposed to the earlier Pro Business Edition or Pro Pioneer, you really won't get a lot more CPU bang for the buck unless you go to a quad core.  Not only do I think that's unnecesaary, the TDP is such that you will likely have overheating problems.

You can check which CPU you have in dmesg.log in the log .zip file.  And while you are there, check the BIOS version in bios_ver.log.

If you have the newer Pro6, you have a Pentium E5300 @ 2.60GHz.  IMHO, an upgrade just isn't worthwhile.  But if you have one of the older ones, you have a Pentium E2160 @ 1.80GHz, and can gain a lot from an upgrade.  A Core2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93 is a good choice and cheap on eBay these days.  But, you need to have the latest BIOS (07/26/2010 FLAME6-MB V2.0) to go that far.  I don't recall how far up the list of Wolfdale family processors you can go without it, but I do know the E6600 does not require it because I had a unit in that configuration.  You must update the BIOS before you swap in an otherwise incompatible CPU, or it won't boot.  Don't try to go to a chip that has a max FSB greater than 1066MHz, as they won't work.  And, BTW, the board will stay at 800MHz FSB regardless.

Updating the BIOS in OS6 is a bit trickier than in OS4.2.x, as there was an add-on that did it under 4.2.x.

Wonderful information!

My CPU is:

Intel Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5300 @ 2.60GHz (family: 0x6, model: 0x17, stepping: 0xa)

And my BIOS is:

07/26/2010 FLAME6-MB V2.0

So, I will not touch the CPU - I have read several posts about heat issues when folks have tried the quad cores.

Memory arrived today and now I have 4GB installed - thank you Amazon - $15.98.

I am a happy camper now with my well used ReadyNAS Pro6 running OS 6.9.5.  (I will wait a few weeks before upgrading to 6.10 in case there are issues with the older legacy machines.)

And after a ton of research, I have managed to restore (4) TimeMachine sparse bundles and got them "inherited" by the correct Mac.  That was no fun.

I'm wondering if a post would be in order to document the exact steps required.  It is not trivial.  I could not find a single post that walked me through the process.

Thanks again to you and Stephen B for your insight and help.

Andy.

---

AndyWheatcroft wrote:

 

I'm wondering if a post would be in order to document the exact steps required.  It is not trivial.  I could not find a single post that walked me through the process.

 

---

I'm sure that would be welcomed by the Mac users of the forum.

---

AndyWheatcroft wrote:

 

I'm wondering if a post would be in order to document the exact steps required.  It is not trivial.  I could not find a single post that walked me through the process.

Posting the process would be helpful.

I have added a lengthy post with the subject - "Restoring a Time Machine Sparse Bundle to a new NAS".

It is quite verbose since I wanted any user with any amount of knowledge to be able to follow.

Thanks :smileyhappy: