ReadyNAS RN10400 - one disk failure quickly leads to array loss and admin account lockout

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Marc_V wrote:

Alternatively, the easiest method would be to replace the failed drives and do a Factory reset then send the backup data back to the NAS.

 

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That's what I would do.  Even if you do manage to repair the array, there could be some file system corruption that would be hard to find.  That's especially likely if you are cloning drives with disk errors.

But first I'd download the log zip file from the NAS, and look at the smart stats for each disk.  The built-in thresholds that the NAS uses to report disk issues are much higher than I like.  While looking at that, check system.log and kernel.log for disk or btrfs errors.  I'd also test the drives by connecting them to a Windows PC (either with SATA or a USB adapter/dock), and test them with vendor tools (Seatools for Seagate; Lifeguard for Western Digital).  I recommend starting with the long non-destructive test, and following up with the write zeros test (called "erase" on one of those tools).

After you verified disk health for the disks you want to use, proceed with the factory install, reconfigure the NAS, and restore the data from the backup.  BTW, the factory install will happen automatically if you've erased the disks.

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Marc_V wrote:

 

It seems that your disks were having the same fate, it's just that they failed all gave up at the same time which is very unfortunate,

Yes, this does happen more often than many people think.  One aspect is that the drives are generally the same model, installed at the same time, and are subject to identical loads and environmental conditions.

Another (more relevant in my opinion) is that bad sectors are only found when those sectors are read or written.  In most NAS, a lot of the data isn't accessed that often, so there can be latent problems that aren't detected for a long time.  Then you try to do a resync (which reads or writes every sector in the volume), and discover that there's a problem.

On this last possibility - there are maintenance tasks you can schedule for the NAS on the volume tab.  That includes a disk test, as well as a scrub (which is a good disk exerciser).  It's also good to run a balance from time to time (not to verify disk health). With BTRFS, free space can remain allocated - which makes it not available.  Running a balance will (among other things) deallocate that free space.