I purchased a ReadyNAS Ultra a few months ago. The first unit failed and was replaced by NetGear. I had to pay for the shipping... Almost immediately the second unit started acting up. This has turned into a tech support nightmare. I opened the case 10 days ago. I've done everything requested promptly and to the letter. And there is still no resolution in sight. Right now the unit has been sitting in TechSupport mode (so it's completely off line for use) for the last 3 days waiting as requested, waiting for it to be escalated to level 3.
From my perspective, this tech support experience has been extremely poor because: 1. Lack of continuity and handoff with technicians. When a tech is off, my case languishes. Sometimes for days. 2. Communication via personal email. Techs leave for training or days off, and my responses sit in their email boxes. 3. I have absolutely no access to case notes or status, since the case was initiated over the phone. 4. I receive emails that say "After reading and agreeing to the terms, reply to this email, quoting the policy...", but they are from "do-not-reply@netgear-support.com". I reply anyways... what else can I do? When I call to find out my case status, I'm berated for not updating my case notes on-line, which I can't access. Catch 22.
I've probably invested 10 hours of my time calling tech support, waiting on hold, setting up my cable modem/router for remote access, etc.
If I had access to the case status, and could easily see exactly what is (or more likely IS NOT) happening with my case, then this would not be quite so frustrating. I could make sure my responses were being promptly recorded into the case, instead of going into a black hole, and having to repeat emails multiple times with different techs.
I have to say, I'm very disappointed with my NetGear ReadyNAS purchase at this point.
It's an Ultra 4 Plus, model RNDP400U. The drives are 4 Seagate ST2000DL003.
When I bought the system in late March, I purchased 5 identical drives. When I first set up the system, I brought it up with the first 4, let it build the volumes, etc. (default XRAID), and then swapped one of the drives out with the spare to make sure ALL of the drives were functional. Everything was fine for over a month, then I got a drive failure (status DEAD) on FrontView. I can't remember what else occurred (since I can't see any of my case notes... GRRRR), but tech support decided it was a hardware issue and sent me a new chassis. In retrospect, the failure happened not too long after I set the "drive spin down" option in the power settings... I'm really wondering if that is what started this whole debacle. So I got the new chassis, swapped out the drives, and very shortly after that I got a message in FrontView that TWO drives (1 and 4) were DEAD. But all of the data was still accessible, and everything was green in RAIDar, and there were no drive lights flashing on the chassis. That's when I opened this ticket. A few days later, RAIDar and the chassis indicated that drive 4 had truly failed. So I put in my spare, fully tested drive. The system is now spamming me with emails every few minutes saying "Data volume will be rebuilt with disk 4." The front panel says Drive 4 checked, but FrontView says it's still DEAD. I think something got corrupted in my config / metadata for the volume during the original failure, and the problem simply got moved to the second chassis. The system would not execute RAID scrubbing either, because it thinks it's degraded.
The system has been in "tech support" mode waiting for L3 to telnet into it for the last several days, so I'm not sure exactly what the status of the system is now, and whether or not the data still seems to be present. Haven't been able to do any backups...
UPDATE I received a call from a L3 tech last night, saying he had repaired one of the system partitions, and that as soon as it rebuilt / resynched, everything would be perfectly fine. So this morning as per instructions I rebooted the system at 9AM. Now it's showing drives 1 and 3 DEAD, and the volume still degraded. That was 3 hours ago... haven't heard a word yet from L3 tech support on what to expect next.
usually your case will be handled by the same L3 until it is resolved. so you should hear back from him around the same time as last time. also if you post your casenumber its easier to track the case.
The case number is above in my second post. It's 15682575.
Talked to the L2 tech this morning at 9AM when the system was rebooted and is still messed up, as per my post above. Other than that, I haven't heard a peep from anyone all day... no emails or phone calls. If it is being handled by the same tech, he's incommunicado, or out of the office. As per my original post, it is VERY FRUSTRATING not having on-line access to my case notes. Perhaps someone did work on my system today... but from my perspective, nothing has happened. They system is still completely unavailable in tech support mode.
currently your case seems to still be with l2. i would call again and have it escalated to l3 again. there will probably be no action before monday though.
The L3 tech (Angelo Macadaan) finally emailed me yesterday saying he was working on my system again, and that it should be back up and running perfectly this morning. Just rebooted as per his instructions, and Drive 1 is still showing DEAD. It's now been TWO WEEKS since I opened this case.
Shortly after the reboot yesterday, the system failed drive 4, so now I'm back to showing 2 drives failed. Angelo worked on it overnight after having me install the ToggleSSH add-in. Sent me an email in the middle of the night asking me to put it back into Tech Support mode, as the logs were locked up. He indicated in his email it was being escalated to engineering, but I haven't heard anything more from anyone all day...
So Angelo and engineering worked on it last night, and said the RAID level of the operating system partition was different than that of the Data partition. How could that happen???
As requested, I rebooted the system this morning.
Good News: All four disks are showing on line. I think the data is still present. I'm not sure, as I can't access some of it due to missing user accounts.
Bad News: Most of the rest of the config looks like it's been blown away. The hostname of the unit has been cleared. User accounts and permissions are gone. Volume maintenance settings have all been wiped out. Share info is present, but most AFP share restrictions have been reset. TimeMachine settings have been reset. NTP settings wiped clean. Etc.
In other words, the system appears to have been almost completely reset to defaults.
Not sure if the system is finally stable or not... waiting for information from tech support. Probably take another day to get an answer... And how did the system ever get messed up like this? Is this going to happen again? I'm feeling very uncomfortable about this ReadyNAS unit. I was really optimistic when I bought the unit based on positive reviews... I'm sure not now.
Got the following email at 1AM last night: Hi James,
Here is the breakdown on what have been done on your ReadyNAS Unit and what we need to do next.
1. Initial problem: Disk 1 and Disk 4 shows up as DEAD drive
Reason: The Disk 1 was not loaded in the Operating System RAID group and Disk 4 lost its partition.
2. Disk 1 and Disk 3 showed up as Drive
Reason: the NAS didn’t load the Disk1 in the Operating System RAID group and Disk 4 lost its partition. This does not usually happen and I later found out that the RAID groups for the Operating System and SWAP has different RAID name from the Data Raid. This was resolved by recreating the Operating System and SWAP RAID. After this was done it triggered an OS reinstall.
3. Unable to change Host name
Reason: The OS reinstall was not complete and hindering us to change some settings in the ReadyNAS unit.
Our next step for this NAS is to trigger another OS reinstallation and if this doesn’t take care of the problem we will ne to re-flash an updated firmware on the NAS.
I hope this explains the issues on the and why we are encountering it. This kind of problem does not commonly happen and I hope you can bare with us while we resolve your issue.
Did the OS reinstall - still unable to set the hostname. Did the re-flash - still unable to set the hostname. The above explanation does not make me feel better about the ReadyNAS... apparently the ReadyNAS just occasionallly, randomly scambles up its partitions.
With as many people you have helped over the last few years mdgm, if you haven't seen it before, it must be. We do see similar problems crop up from time to time, but this is a new one on me as well.
JamesHaskell, I know it can be frustrating, but I think it is a new one for TS as well. Normally, once they log onto a members NAS it is fixed very quickly. The fact that they haven't been able to solve the problem is probably vexing them as well.
L2 tech support called me a couple of times today saying the case has been re-escalated to L3, but they see no indication whatsoever in the case notes that anything has been done today at all. Geez... just amazingly poor service.
from what i can see your case has been worked on on jun 6, 7, 8,9 and 11 (today). the only day it hasnt been worked on was jun 10th. i wouldnt exactly call this poor service at all.
While the effort they have expended so far has not solved the problem does not mean you have not gotten good support. Some problems do not have an easy solution.
Guys - just my opinion but i don't think the last 2 comments are particularly helpful, and may even antagonise further a clearly frustrated customer.
If I look at the feedback given to the OP, have to say that even though I consider myself reasonably experienced with ReadyNAS devices, much of the feedback isn't exactly clear, and would, particularly if I was a new user, cause me to be concerned about trusting a device that can suffer such a signficant software failure. Also the seeming to bounce around between different support agents - not something a customer needs to see even if it is necessary for Netgear to do - only causes further unnecessary concern and frustration.
I'm not contesting at all that the Support team is working hard on this, but when a customer has a serious problem like this and is worried - getting the communication right (clear, concise, relevant and timely) is as important as the support of the technical issue itself. With that in mind, rather than telling a customer he is wrong and, in effect, should be appreciating the support he is getting, or the seemingly slow resolution to the problem is in part his own fault for not having an additional backup just doesn't seem appropriate to me. It would be far better if someone from Netgear directly involved in the case could just keep him a little better informed - and a far more convincing way of showing the good support that is claimed.
Just my $0.02 that probably counts for nothing - but I hope someone involved in the case does get to read this.
