RN424 , 4x 8TB WD Red Plus failing after 120 days?

Hello Stephen B, thank you for coming back to us; @ elaplace, thank you for contributing.

Yesterday (Thursday) I carried out a low-level formatting on a 75Gb HD I took out of another PC. This morning (Friday) I inserted that disk in Slot 1, powered it up, and the RN424 created a volume as RAID1 - JBOD (see fig 1). I then changed password and NAS name, powered it down, placed the disk in Slot 2, powered it up and it tested fine (see fig 2). Ditto when insterted in Slot 3 and Slot 4. I then returned it to Slot 1… and the RN424 went incommunicado, the page timed out on three different PCs for 4 hours (but this, although strange, may not be relevant – see belo).

As the test has been successful, I have since removed the test disk. I returned the original 8TB disks in their locations (Slot 1, 3 & 4). The RN424 has NOT been repowered yet because a) I wished to be cast iron positive that it was the right thing to do without endangering the array, and b) I wish NOT to use the RN424 in a degraded state, so long I have space on the other NAS, I will try to avoid using it.

Tomorrow I will try to contact the supplier of both RN424 and see what they can do about the failed disk. [[ Update – DONE – but they are closed for the weekend ]]

If I am correct, once I have a replacement 8TB, I should

1. Power-up the RN424, and I should see the full array in a degraded state
2. “hot insert” the replacement disk in Slot 2, where it belonged
3. Wait ~24/48h until the 14TB array is fully rebuilt and the Volume return to a “redundant” state

With regards to the RN424 going incommunicado, I just realised that it was using both NIC on a bonded connection (CAT6 to a GS324T); but after the  factory default, the NIC were not bonded anymore and maybe after a reboot I did not check the IP address (which until then never changed, it was always 192.168.2.63, I was filming every reboot during the Slot 1,2,3,4 tests)

StephenB on the reply to elaplace’s comment

“FWIW, the WD80EFAX is a WD Red Plus drive, not a WD Red”

Apologies, well spotted, TY for the correction.

I am awell aware of the difference between CMR  and SMR, I returned and swapped two HDs on another NAS.

“AFAICT we are seeing just one drive failure here, not multiple.  Usually when I see multiple early failures I am thinking there might have been damage in storage or shipment.  But failures at ~120 days are somewhat unusual - in my experience they either fail out-of-the-box or run quite a bit longer.  In any event, they can and do fail at any time (which is why you need backups).”

Three points: a) all the 4 disk have the same date of manufacture (22Dec 2020) and very close SN (VGJKAN6G, VGJLL44XG, VGJJLL4G, are the three good HDs, and VGJL3SDG, is the failed one);

b) the “mode” of failure caught me by surprise, in all the failures I had in the past, the disk started showing errors which ramped up – sometimes very quickly. Not in this case, it seemed to have been a CATASTROPHIC and sudden failure. I also find odd that the WD diagnostics did not even SEE the disk

c) backups – YES I need a backup strategy. But with 25TB (and growing) original data, even a new RN214 with 4 x8TB would not be enough for the first backup (and then there would be incremental), I really do not know which startegy is open to me. Any suggestions welcomed. Also, I don’t think I really understood “snapshots” and where and when use them.

elaplace

“The NAS players around me accept it very early, and are not friendly to the WD RED”

…”not friendly”? I am not sure what you mean…..