I have a ReadyNAS RN104 that it seems has a drive that is going kaput. I thought I had alerts set up but seems they were going to an old email address and so I haven't been getting the 4 months of alerts regarding the errors and impending doom...
On sunday, I woke to the NAS making a loud whirring noise and the following errors showed on the system when I checked the logs:
Apr 12, 2025 08:26:32 AM Disk: Detected increasing reallocated sector count: [2123] on disk 2 (Internal)
Apr 12, 2025 08:19:59 AM Disk: Detected increasing ATA error count: [1536] on disk 2 (Internal)
When viewing the SMART log, the ATA errors date back to the 31 December 2024 and numbers increasing since then.
When I look in overview it says Degraded. I gather this means the drive itself is old and needs replacing (and fingers crossed it shouldn't be a problem with the NAS connection to the drive).
In the admin page tab volumes, Disk 1, 3 and 4 are blue with green status lights. Disk 2 is completely greyed out with no light.
In performance, Disk 2 is also greyed out and temperature is 0.
See screenshots below.
When I scroll through my shares in windows explorer, I can't see anything obvious missing (though for movie and music folders it would be hard to know). The random folders I have tested all seem to be accessible.
In the admin page, in the backup tab, it seems that I have most of the smaller files scheduled to backup to a folder called Backup. The ones not backing up are large folders of movies and music.
I don't recall when or how the Backup folder path was set up. I have searched the forums and can't seem to find anything that mentions if the Backup folder would have been established when putting in disk 3 and 4, to be a backup for disk 1 and 2, or whether it is all a jumble in there. I also can't seem to find in the admin page where I can find how the Backup folder is saved/stored etc.
Questions:
1. Forum discussions I have seen say to simply switch out the failed disk and replace it. However, is any further backup required first?
I.e. as my large media folders aren't being backed up, setting these to backup internally in the NAS would be worthwhile if changing out Disk2?
Or given I can currently access them when Disk 2 seems to have failed, is that not required?
Do I need to ensure I am also backing up all files/folders etc externally (scrounging around for a bunch of old school 1TB hard disks and trying to fit the priority stuff on there first)?
2. Is there a way to tell if it is the disk itself that has failed or an issue with the NAS?
3. Is there anything else I need to know or check re data resilience before I pull the drive out and put a new one in?
There is a suprising lack of comprehensive information re backing up on any of the NAS information pages (other than setting up the backup protocol for where it goes - but it only gives me internal folder options or external options).
When I look in overview it says Degraded. I gather this means the drive itself is old and needs replacing (and fingers crossed it shouldn't be a problem with the NAS connection to the drive).
Your RAID array has single-disk redundancy. That means you can still get to your data even if one drive fails.
The "degraded" status is for the full volume of four disks, and it means that the NAS has already decided that disk 2 has failed, and has stopped using it. So your data is definitely at risk, since if there is a problem with another drive you will lose all your files.
1. Forum discussions I have seen say to simply switch out the failed disk and replace it. However, is any further backup required first?
Devices can fail at any time, and your data is particularly vulnerable right now. Netgear recommends backing up your data before manipulating disks, and I agree with that guidance. However, you don't want to delay the replacement either. So order the replacement disk (another Ironwolf is fine), and start backing up while you wait. You might also order a USB drive to give you space to back up.
You should prioritize unique content (documents, family photos and videos) that cannot be replaced. You might already have enough storage (thumb drives, or PC disk space) to hold the personal files. If not, you could purchase cloud storage from Google (or others), and copy the files to Google Drive (or equivalent). 2 TB of storage costs about $10/month. 2 TB won't be enough to copy all your files, but likely will be enough for the personal files.
Then back up media (music, movies, etc). after the personal files are safe.
I.e. as my large media folders aren't being backed up, setting these to backup internally in the NAS would be worthwhile if changing out Disk2?
To be clear - your data is spread over all 4 of your disk drives. Making another copy of these files on your NAS is a waste of your time. If the volume is lost, all the files on the NAS will be lost with it. Backups need to be made to another device.
. Is there a way to tell if it is the disk itself that has failed or an issue with the NAS?
The reallocated sectors are definitely pointing towards the disk, and not the NAS. If you can connect the disk to a Windows PC (with SATA or a USB adapter/dock), you could test it with Seatools to confirm.
3. Is there anything else I need to know or check re data resilience before I pull the drive out and put a new one in?
I always test my replacement drives first (using Seatools in a PC), before I put them into the NAS. Note you shouldn't (and don't need to) format them in the PC. I run the full non-destructive "long" test, and follow that up with full disk write test (one pass). If both tests pass (and sometimes one or the other fail), I proceed with the disk replacement.
I recommend hot-swapping the drive (NAS running when you remove it and insert the new one). But you do need to be very careful to remove the correct drive, and leave the others connected. So if you aren't certain you can do that successfully, then power down the NAS, and remove disk 2 first. After that, you can power up - the NAS will still show a degraded status. Then hot-insert the replacement.
Note that you can download the full log zip file from the NAS web ui. Disk_info.log will give you the serial number for disk 2 (and should also show the reallocated sectors and the ATA errors). If you power down and remove the disk, you can then double-check the serial number before you power the NAS back up again.
If you like, you can send me a PM (private message) with a link to the zip, and I can look for any other issues in the logs. You send a PM using the envelope icon in the upper right of the forum page. You'll need to upload the zip to cloud storage (google drive, dropbox, etc), and include a link in the PM. Make sure the link permissions are set so anyone with the link can download.
I recommend hot-swapping the drive (NAS running when you remove it and insert the new one). But you do need to be very careful to remove the correct drive, and leave the others connected. So if you aren't certain you can do that successfully, then power down the NAS, and remove disk 2 first. After that, you can power up - the NAS will still show a degraded status. Then hot-insert the replacement.
Also, don't power cycle the NAS with the bad drive installed. If the drive happens to come up for a short period if time when you re-boot, the NAS my try to re-sync it into the volume, which is going to fail. And when it fails, you can lose the entire volume. If you've powered it down already, remove the bad drive before you power it up, verify your data is still intact when powered back on, then install the new drive with power still on.
Thanks for the advice. I have purchased another drive and it has arrived today but I've been spending the last day and a bit trying to work out backup solutions. I purchased the extra storage on google drive, but now find out that access to the drive is blocked by Google and the cloud option of the ReadyNAS is basically no longer viable (see similar post here https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-Storage-Apps-Current/Google-Drive/m-p/2453401).
How risky is it to hot swap without external backup?
Trying to work on other solutions too in the meantime with other hard disks but that will take a while and the other disk is ready to go.
If you lose another drive before the re-sync completes, your volume will be lost. If all of your drives are the same age, then another failing is a larger risk. That risk is especially high during a RAID sync because it puts a lot of stress on the drives.
But to properly assess your risk, you have to evaluate the consequence of losing the volume. If there is data on it that exists nowhere else (which is always a bad idea) and whose loss would be bad (losing all your family photos, for example), then you shouldn't risk it. If everything there is backup itself (so it exists elsewhere), then you can always recover from the original source, though that will likely take you some time, making the risk lower.
