This topic has been marked solved and closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.
My ReadyNAS NV+ has developed a fault. The blue power LED is flashing at inverals of about once per second, and one of the two HD LEDs is flashing at the same rate.
I can ping the ReadyNAS, but I can't access it via a browser or RAIDar. Unfortunately I can't read the LED panel because cables from a replacement power supply are pressing against the back of it which garbles the output (though not always, oddly).
I believe the flashing HD LED is telling me that the second X-RAID mirrored drive has failed. The two disks are a pair of 1TB drives.
I bought two WD Red 2TB NAS drives in anticipation of a future failure back at the beginning of the year, but I see now that they are "SMR" drives, which appear to be controversial.
I would simply pull out the failed drive, but since the ReadyNAS is not responding to RAIDar / browser access I'm not sure what the best course of action might be. Ditto for the suitability of the replacement drives.
Assuming I go down this route and acquire another 1TB drive, is it best to leave the ReadyNAS powered on with the existing drive connected when I plug it in the new drive to begin the RAID creation process?
I do recommend doing a hot-insert (with the NAS running). The benefit of doing a hot-insert or a hot-swap is that the NAS detects exactly what is happening. If you do it with the NAS powered down, then it needs to figure out what changed.
Though doing it powered down generally does work too.
That is the usual sign for a failed drive. But something more is going on since you can't get status from RAIDar.
I'm assuming the two drives are the only ones you have installed, since you don't mention any others.
Your best course of action is to test each of the drives using a PC and manufacture's drive test tool. If that is not an option, you could try booting with each drive individually.
You are correct the SMR drives are not the best choice for RAID. However, the file system of your older NAS will put up with it better than the BTRFS used on current ReadyNAS, though re-sync time will be affected.
Thank you very much for replying. My apologies, I should have clarified that the ReadyNAS has only two disks installed, both of 1TB capacity.
I also have an external drive connected to the ReadyNAS, and a nightly backup keeps the content synced.
I could try sourcing drive test tools for the disks. Currently I don't even remember what make and model they are.
Regarding booting from the drives, forgive my ignorance, but do you mean taking them out of the ReadyNAS and connecting them to my PC, and then booting from each drive from there? Or removing each drive in turn from the ReadyNAS, and then attempting to restart it?
I appreciate the note about SMR drives, I wish I'd done more research at the time, but perhaps I can make do with these ones. I'm not worried about performance, the ReadyNAS isn't used intensively. I just want it to be reliable.
Regarding booting from the drives, forgive my ignorance, but do you mean taking them out of the ReadyNAS and connecting them to my PC, and then booting from each drive from there? Or removing each drive in turn from the ReadyNAS, and then attempting to restart it?
Removing each drive in turn from the ReadyNAS (powered down), anad then powering it up.
It's fine to keep the disks in there current slots (trying to boot up with disk 2 in slot 2, and slot 1 empty).
Thank you StephenB for the detailed explanation, I will try that now and then reply with my results.
Edit: it's refusing to respond to holding down the power button for 5 seconds. So I'm resorting to a power button switch off.
Update. OK, I removed the disk from slot 1, and left the disk in slot 2 connected, then powered the device back on.
Helpfully the LCD display is readable, and after spending several moments saying only "booting..." it now says:
"booting... Found bad disk"
So that seems to confirm it. What's the best sequence for moving forward from here (of reinserting disks / device powered off / on when doing so)? I am a bit concerned about this SMR scenario. The dead drive is a Seagate Barracuda 1TB with model number (I think) ST31000520AS. The second drive is a WD Red 1TB WD10EFRX.
Helpfully the LCD display is readable, and after spending several moments saying only "booting..." it now says:
"booting... Found bad disk"
Does it boot up normally with disk 1 in slot 1 (and slot 2 empty)?
I am a bit concerned about this SMR scenario. The dead drive is a Seagate Barracuda 1TB with model number (I think) ST31000520AS. The second drive is a WD Red 1TB WD10EFRX.
Thanks again. When I removed drive 2, reinserted drive 1 and then restarted, the device LCD said that it was running a "quota chk" which took several minutes. Unfortunatly the display became garbled again when it was nearing the completion of this. However I am now able to access the ReadyNAS via my browser.
The Health panel shows:
Disk 1 WDC WD10EFRX-68JCSN0 931 GB , 28 C / 82 F , Write-cache ON OK Disk 2 UNKNOWN 931 GB Dead Fan 1 1875 RPM OK Temp 1 31.5 C / 88 F [Normal 0-60 C / 32-140 F] OK UPS 1 Not present OK
Oddly the log shows relatively little information:
Mon Dec 7 00:43:13 GMT 2020 System is up. Mon Dec 7 00:37:09 GMT 2020 Improper shutdown detected. To ensure data integrity, a filesystem check should be performed by rebooting the NAS through Frontview with the volume scan option enabled. Sun Dec 6 00:31:41 GMT 2020 Backup finished. [Job 001] Sat Dec 5 11:02:53 GMT 2020 UPS is on line power. Sat Dec 5 11:02:47 GMT 2020 UPS is on battery power.
Also, my fault again for ambiguity. The drive specs I mentioned previously were for the existing drives inside the device. The two replacement drives that I purchased for future use are the WD Red variety with SMR.
I think the first thing to do is back up the data.
Once that is taken care of, you'll need to decide if you want to purchase two new Red Plus or Ironwolf drives, or use the WD20EFAX. If you maintain good backup(s), then the only risk of trying the WD20EFAX is that you'd see poor performance.
Thank you, you've been very helpful. I will back things up now.
I'm contemplating getting another identical 1TB WD Red which does have CMR, I was able to locate a supplier online - and put off the higher capacity and other drive issues for later.
Assuming I go down this route and acquire another 1TB drive, is it best to leave the ReadyNAS powered on with the existing drive connected when I plug it in the new drive to begin the RAID creation process? I think that's the correct technique, but I just want to be sure.
Assuming I go down this route and acquire another 1TB drive, is it best to leave the ReadyNAS powered on with the existing drive connected when I plug it in the new drive to begin the RAID creation process?
I do recommend doing a hot-insert (with the NAS running). The benefit of doing a hot-insert or a hot-swap is that the NAS detects exactly what is happening. If you do it with the NAS powered down, then it needs to figure out what changed.
Though doing it powered down generally does work too.
Thank you again (and sorry for the late reply). Having backed up everything to an external drive and taken delivery of a replacement hard disk, I will be doing exactly this today.
