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Forum Discussion
SATA reset
I recently started getting problems with my ReadyNAS Duo waking up – the boot process stopped soon after the start with the fans running fast, and needed a hard reboot to start. I raised a support tic...
I have a few conclusions from this little adventure:
1. When I tested my disks, it turned out that both had failed, which showed up right at the start of SeaTools’ test sequence in each case. So a SATA reset (whatever it is) does seem to be a possible indicator of disk failure. To their credit, Seagate replaced both drives immediately.
2. Both disks failing simultaneously is not supposed to happen! It defeats the protection of a RAID array. So this reiterates the straplines of several contributors who are a lot more knowledgeable than me – a NAS is not a substitute for a backup. Luckily I had one.
3. But why did the two disks fail together? It could have been coincidence, a bad batch of drives, some exogenous event, or some event that came from the NAS itself. I don’t know, and that is slightly worrying.
4. Throughout, the SMART statistics and the ReadyNAS frontview panel (which probably feeds off the SMART statistics) showed both disks as healthy, so you cannot rely on those indicators.
5. The current version of SeaTools can test through a USB enclosure, which makes life easier.
6. And now the second shocker – although I had a backup of the full ReadyNAS to a USB drive made with the RAIDiator 4.1.8 software, there appears to be no function of that software to restore a backup. What is the point of a backup if it can’t be restored? Netgear please take note! I ended up doing a manual restore using a client PC to pull the data off the USB, through the ReadyNAS, and then write it back onto the ReadyNAS. Even with a 1GB network card, 500GB data was not fun.
I hope these notes help others in a similar position.
Cheers
Chris
1. When I tested my disks, it turned out that both had failed, which showed up right at the start of SeaTools’ test sequence in each case. So a SATA reset (whatever it is) does seem to be a possible indicator of disk failure. To their credit, Seagate replaced both drives immediately.
2. Both disks failing simultaneously is not supposed to happen! It defeats the protection of a RAID array. So this reiterates the straplines of several contributors who are a lot more knowledgeable than me – a NAS is not a substitute for a backup. Luckily I had one.
3. But why did the two disks fail together? It could have been coincidence, a bad batch of drives, some exogenous event, or some event that came from the NAS itself. I don’t know, and that is slightly worrying.
4. Throughout, the SMART statistics and the ReadyNAS frontview panel (which probably feeds off the SMART statistics) showed both disks as healthy, so you cannot rely on those indicators.
5. The current version of SeaTools can test through a USB enclosure, which makes life easier.
6. And now the second shocker – although I had a backup of the full ReadyNAS to a USB drive made with the RAIDiator 4.1.8 software, there appears to be no function of that software to restore a backup. What is the point of a backup if it can’t be restored? Netgear please take note! I ended up doing a manual restore using a client PC to pull the data off the USB, through the ReadyNAS, and then write it back onto the ReadyNAS. Even with a 1GB network card, 500GB data was not fun.
I hope these notes help others in a similar position.
Cheers
Chris
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