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Restart a ReadyNAS NV+ RND4000 after many years of downtime
Hi folks,
after many years of downtime I try to reactivate my NV+ (RND4000) NAS server for nostalgic reasons. I took it out of service after some big trouble with the firmware of the seagate Barrac...
4.1.13 should work with 2 TB disks, but still you should upgrade to the current firmware, which is 4.1.16. You can try the check-for-updates feature in the web ui, or you can download it manually from here: https://kb.netgear.com/000038792/RAIDiator-Version-4-1-16-Sparc
If you do a manual install, then you need to unzip the download and install the binary image. Installing the zip file won't work.
Documentation for your NAS is found here: https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RND4000v1_(ReadyNAS_NV_plus_v1).aspx
Although you didn't ask about disks, I do want to point out that the hardware compatability list for your NAS hasn't been updated in many years now. The best option is to use a NAS-purposed drive (the 2 TB WDC Red or Seagate Ironwolf). Enterprise-class drives are overkill, your NAS isn't fast enough to take advantage of them. I don't recommend using desktop-class drives in any NAS.
Also, if you are using the NAS with Windows 10... Microsoft is deprecating the SMB 1.0 client that is needed to access the NAS through file explorer. You can manually enable it - try entering "turn windows features on or off" in the windows search bar.
My own NV+ is still in service btw - though I am only using it as a secondary backup. I plan to continue to run it until it fails, but I won't invest more money in it. It's been very reliable for me, but it's capacity and performance isn't enough anymore.
4.1.13 should work with 2 TB disks, but still you should upgrade to the current firmware, which is 4.1.16. You can try the check-for-updates feature in the web ui, or you can download it manually from here: https://kb.netgear.com/000038792/RAIDiator-Version-4-1-16-Sparc
If you do a manual install, then you need to unzip the download and install the binary image. Installing the zip file won't work.
Documentation for your NAS is found here: https://www.netgear.com/support/product/RND4000v1_(ReadyNAS_NV_plus_v1).aspx
Although you didn't ask about disks, I do want to point out that the hardware compatability list for your NAS hasn't been updated in many years now. The best option is to use a NAS-purposed drive (the 2 TB WDC Red or Seagate Ironwolf). Enterprise-class drives are overkill, your NAS isn't fast enough to take advantage of them. I don't recommend using desktop-class drives in any NAS.
Also, if you are using the NAS with Windows 10... Microsoft is deprecating the SMB 1.0 client that is needed to access the NAS through file explorer. You can manually enable it - try entering "turn windows features on or off" in the windows search bar.
My own NV+ is still in service btw - though I am only using it as a secondary backup. I plan to continue to run it until it fails, but I won't invest more money in it. It's been very reliable for me, but it's capacity and performance isn't enough anymore.
Thank you very much for the quick answer. My NV+ is not connected to the internet and just runs as a local storage for an old desktop with Win XP.
I told the NV to do a reboot and check disks at next boot. Unfortunately it comes up with a "Found bad disks" message without saying which one is bad. Yesterday all of them were still fully ok. The boot sequence doesn't finish. May I take out the disks one by one in this state?
If the NV+ will not boot, I can't test the firmware update. It also doesn't shut down when pressing the power button for five seconds. I will need to force it down most likely, because it is also not accessible via RAIDar so far.
Anselmino wrote:
May I take out the disks one by one in this state?
Yes. Forcibly power down and then you can test the disks one-by-one n a windows PC using vendor tools (seatools for seagate, lifeguard for western digital). You can connect the disks using SATA or a USB adapter/dock. I doubt that the vendor tools run on XP anymore.
You can also start over, doing a factory reset with only one disk in place. If that works, upgrade the firmware. Then examine the SMART stats for the disk, and make sure it is actually healthy. If it fails, try again with another disk.
Then hot-insert the second disk, and wait for it to resync. If that succeeds, re-examine the SMART stats for both drives. Repeat this for the remaining disks.
Now I switched the ReadyNAS NV+ off and on again an did a reboot with only drive 3+4. All drives are WD20ETRX (WD Caviar Green). The boot sequence was successful, but it shows "C: 0/0 MB free", which irritates me a little. I didn't put any data on that device so far. So even if the volume gets lost, this is not a problem for now. I just wonder, what a stupid system behavior this is.
At least I can access it now via RAIDar 4.1.4. I hope, the unzipped file RAIDiator-4.1.16 is an iso file, which I can't see, although my Windows Explorer is set to display file suffix.
The report after reboot btw says "Volume scan found no errors" although the front display still says "C: 0/0 MB free". Very funny! A second message says, the volume shares could not be found. Does this again point to a destroyed file allocation table? So it seems, it's a problem of the ReadyNAS, not of the drives, because it behaves exactly the same way as the seagate Barracudas long time ago. Let's see what's going on after the RAIDiator update.
Anselmino wrote:
Now I switched the ReadyNAS NV+ off and on again an did a reboot with only drive 3+4. All drives are WD20ETRX (WD Caviar Green). The boot sequence was successful, but it shows "C: 0/0 MB free", which irritates me a little. I just wonder, what a stupid system behavior this is.
The RAID volume can't be mounted with only two disks, you need at least three. This is standard RAID stuff.
You could try powering down and trying again with 2+3+4. Many times a boot failure is related to the first disk (since the system will ordinarly boot from it if it is present).
With your help so far this has not been too much work. Many thanks for that.
Checking the disks one by one seems quite boring to me. I failed with this before when trying to rescue the Barracudas several years ago. I once bought such a USB adaptor, because I don't have a desktop with SATA slots at hand. All my computers are notebooks since that time and none of them has a 3,5" hard drive - what a pitty!
After the file upload there was a request button whether I really want to do a system update. Yepp, that was my intention.
Now I'm booting with drives 2+3+4 and the RAIDiator-4.1.16 file uploaded to the ReadyNAS. It says "Booting..." and "Updating FW". Seems this went nicely so far. Sure, this device is not very quick in everything it does. But this is the "nostalgic factor".
After 6 minutes the fan becomes louder and "Please wait" is in the display". Still also "Booting...". Then the "Please wait" disappears and the fan still goes max for another 3 minutes. Now the fan slows down.
Meanwhile I updated RAIDar from 4.1.4 to 4.3.8 and hope this is compatible with Win XP.
Of course it throws a message "No JVM could be found on your system. Please define EXE4J_JAVA_HOME to point to an installed 32-bit JDK or JRE or download a JRE from www.java.com"
I do what? Well, let's see where this leads me to. Did I mention, that I'm not a gamer at all? This is not fun at all to me. I need my time for better things.
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