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Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

javelindesign
Aspirant

I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Netgear/ReadyNAS Pros,

 

I think I'm in big trouble and was hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I have an old ReadyNAS that has 5 occupied bays.. 1-3 each have 1TB drives that I installed back when I bought the unit... Bays 4-5 each have a 4TB WD RED nas drive.

 

About 2 months ago, I started getting errors on startup that Drive #3 was growing in the "Reallocated Sector Count" and told me it might be a good idea to replace. So I ordered a 3TB WD RED drive and when received it, turned off the NAS, took out the old #3 drive, swapped in the new 3TB model, closed it up, turned it on and waited.. I THOUGHT that it would just do it's re-mixing/syncing and I'd be in business again, but that's not what happened...  

 

The system came back with disk #3 showing "Spare" and disk #5 DEAD. So I figured maybe I should just go back to where I was.. I put the 1TB back into #3 spot, then put the new drive in #6, but things are all kinds of messed up. 

 

The front of the NAS says life support, and I can't see any volumes mount.

 

The CRITICAL data on the NAS is backed up, but I have many TBs of "useful" videos and the like that I'd like to keep if at all possible. I took the 4TB "DEAD" drive out and hooked it up to my PC with the WD tools program, but it didn't even "see" it.. (thinks it's 0kb).

 

Does anyone have any idea how I might proceed?

Model: RNDP600E (ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition)|ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer Edition|EOL
Message 1 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Sorry - I think the model is - ReadyNASRNDP6000 (no "E") - it was from around 2011 I think??

Message 2 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@javelindesign wrote:

I took the 4TB "DEAD" drive out and hooked it up to my PC with the WD tools program, but it didn't even "see" it.. (thinks it's 0kb).

Do you mean Lifeguard?

 

If you are using an old USB 2.0/SATA adapter in the PC, it's possible that it doesn't support 4 TB drives.  Though this is consistent with the 4 TB drive failing during the stress of the resync.

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

The system came back with disk #3 showing "Spare" and disk #5 DEAD. So I figured maybe I should just go back to where I was.. I put the 1TB back into #3 spot, then put the new drive in #6, but things are all kinds of messed up. 

 


Did you do this with the NAS powered down?  (you should have).

 


@javelindesign wrote:

So I ordered a 3TB WD RED drive and when received it, turned off the NAS, took out the old #3 drive, swapped in the new 3TB model, closed it up, turned it on and waited..


As an aside here - you should have ordered 4 TB (or 1 TB).  You can't add a new intermediate size to the array (more accurately, the NAS would have to treat the 3 TB drive as a 1 TB drive).  With XRAID, you can replace a disk with the same size, or with a drive that is at least as large as the biggest disk in the array.

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

The CRITICAL data on the NAS is backed up, but I have many TBs of "useful" videos and the like that I'd like to keep if at all possible.


The safest way to proceed is to contact Netgear paid support (via my.netgear.com).  They will likely require a data recovery contract, which is expensive.  https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service

 

There are some other data recovery services out there - I have no experience with any of them, so I have no recommendation to make.  Terms vary - some only charge if they can recover some data. 

 

If you can connect all the disks to a PC, you could also purchase R-Studio software and try that.  https://www.r-studio.com/ RStudio is less expensive than a data recovery service, but if you also need to purchase a disk enclosure to connect the 5 disks, you will likely end up at a similar cost point.

 

 

Note that the more experimenting you do, the more difficult data recovery would actually be.  But if the data recovery options are too expensive, you could gamble on a more risky approach.

 

For instance, power down the NAS, and then try cloning the original 1 TB drive to another 1 TB drive - using software that does sector by sector cloning.  Clonezilla is one option.  Then put in the cloned disk with the other originals (no new disk), and try powering up. 

 

At this point you could boot up the system using the boot-menu option to skip the file system check. My guess is that the volume still won't mount, but there is a chance that it will. 

 

If you already know how to use ssh, you could alternatively boot up in tech support mode, and attempt to forcibly mount the RAID array.  If you don't, then it's probably best not to try to learn it now.

 

Message 3 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Steven,

 

Thank you SO much for your guidance.. Please see below with ***

 

 


@StephenB wrote:

@javelindesign wrote:

I took the 4TB "DEAD" drive out and hooked it up to my PC with the WD tools program, but it didn't even "see" it.. (thinks it's 0kb).

Do you mean Lifeguard?

 

***- Yes.. Lifeguard

 

If you are using an old USB 2.0/SATA adapter in the PC, it's possible that it doesn't support 4 TB drives.  Though this is consistent with the 4 TB drive failing during the stress of the resync.

 

*** - That's probably the issue.. I'm using an older sort of "swiss army knife" external bare hard drive adapter thing with USB2 interface. Do you think it would be worth while getting a newer version? Do you really think it could find/correct an issue with the drive in your experience?

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

The system came back with disk #3 showing "Spare" and disk #5 DEAD. So I figured maybe I should just go back to where I was.. I put the 1TB back into #3 spot, then put the new drive in #6, but things are all kinds of messed up. 

 


Did you do this with the NAS powered down?  (you should have).

 

*** - I swapped out the drives when everything was shut down, but early on, the system got stuck at 92% boot (it was there for 2 days), so I turned it off and restarted (could have added to my problems)

 


@javelindesign wrote:

So I ordered a 3TB WD RED drive and when received it, turned off the NAS, took out the old #3 drive, swapped in the new 3TB model, closed it up, turned it on and waited..


As an aside here - you should have ordered 4 TB (or 1 TB).  You can't add a new intermediate size to the array (more accurately, the NAS would have to treat the 3 TB drive as a 1 TB drive).  With XRAID, you can replace a disk with the same size, or with a drive that is at least as large as the biggest disk in the array.

 

*** - Thanks.. i didn't know that.. I actually do have a 3rd 4TB, and a 3TB, but sounds like if I use 3 4TBs and 1 3TB you're saying the system will really just see 4+4+3+3?

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

The CRITICAL data on the NAS is backed up, but I have many TBs of "useful" videos and the like that I'd like to keep if at all possible.


The safest way to proceed is to contact Netgear paid support (via my.netgear.com).  They will likely require a data recovery contract, which is expensive.  https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service

 

There are some other data recovery services out there - I have no experience with any of them, so I have no recommendation to make.  Terms vary - some only charge if they can recover some data. 

 

If you can connect all the disks to a PC, you could also purchase R-Studio software and try that.  https://www.r-studio.com/ RStudio is less expensive than a data recovery service, but if you also need to purchase a disk enclosure to connect the 5 disks, you will likely end up at a similar cost point.

 

*** - I think at this point, I don't want to put several hundred dollars into recorving data that would just "be nice" to recover...

 

Note that the more experimenting you do, the more difficult data recovery would actually be.  But if the data recovery options are too expensive, you could gamble on a more risky approach.

 

For instance, power down the NAS, and then try cloning the original 1 TB drive to another 1 TB drive - using software that does sector by sector cloning.  Clonezilla is one option.  Then put in the cloned disk with the other originals (no new disk), and try powering up. 

 

At this point you could boot up the system using the boot-menu option to skip the file system check. My guess is that the volume still won't mount, but there is a chance that it will. 

 

If you already know how to use ssh, you could alternatively boot up in tech support mode, and attempt to forcibly mount the RAID array.  If you don't, then it's probably best not to try to learn it now.

 

**** - GENERAL QUESTION *** - My issued really seem to be caused from confusion from the file system/data right? If I put in my most recent drives and did a facorty reset (or whatever it's called) from the BOOT menu, do you think this would function like new again (with no data obviously)? It's a 10 year old or so NAS, and I know there are much more modern versions available, but this old ReadyNAS still does fundamentally what I need it to do.

 

**** - GENERAL QUESTION NUMBER 2 *** - This last go around I used X-Raid or whatever. If I have the option (and I'm not sure I do) to use RAID5 or something, would I be able to take all the drives out of this NAS and move them to another NAS (even another BRAND) of NAS as use them as is? Is RAID5 the same and interchangeable between manufacturers?

 

Thanks!

Jay

 

@StephenB 

 

 

 

 


 

Message 4 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@javelindesign wrote:

 

*** - That's probably the issue.. I'm using an older sort of "swiss army knife" external bare hard drive adapter thing with USB2 interface. Do you think it would be worth while getting a newer version? Do you really think it could find/correct an issue with the drive in your experience?

 


I got a new adapter when I ran into this myself. I do confirm disk issues with Lifeguard, and also like to check new disks before I install them.

 

But I don't try to fix the issues.  I've found that once a disk begins to fail, it just gets worse over time.  So when I see rising counts I just replace the disk.  If it's under warranty, I exchange it - but usually use the recertified replacement somewhere less critical.  

 


@javelindesign wrote:

*** - Thanks.. i didn't know that.. I actually do have a 3rd 4TB, and a 3TB, but sounds like if I use 3 4TBs and 1 3TB you're saying the system will really just see 4+4+3+3?

No.  The capacity rule for XRAID is to "sum the disks and subtract the largest".  So 3x4TB+3TB would give you 11 TB (10 TiB).

 

But there are constraints on expansion.  If you started fresh with a factory default, you could have 2x1 TB + 3 TB + 2x4 TB in the array.  But you start with 3x1 TB and 2x4 TB, you can't expand by replacing one of the 1 TB drives with a 3 TB drive.  We can give a more complete explanation on this, but it isn't directly linked to your current issue.

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

**** - GENERAL QUESTION *** - My issued really seem to be caused from confusion from the file system/data right? If I put in my most recent drives and did a facorty reset (or whatever it's called) from the BOOT menu, do you think this would function like new again (with no data obviously)? It's a 10 year old or so NAS, and I know there are much more modern versions available, but this old ReadyNAS still does fundamentally what I need it to do.

 


Yes, assuming healthy disks.  FWIW, my own Pro-6 is still in use (though it's possible yours might be the pro pioneer or pro business edition model, which is a bit older hardware than mine).

 

You could also convert it to run current OS-6 firmware if you like, though I suggest upgrading the memory if you want to do that.  The upgrade requires a factory reset, so it wouldn't be a bad time to do it. You'd get some new features - including SMB 3 support.  Your current NAS is limited to SMB 1, which is being deprecated by both Microsoft and Apple.

 


@javelindesign wrote:

 

**** - GENERAL QUESTION NUMBER 2 *** - This last go around I used X-Raid or whatever. If I have the option (and I'm not sure I do) to use RAID5 or something, would I be able to take all the drives out of this NAS and move them to another NAS (even another BRAND) of NAS as use them as is? Is RAID5 the same and interchangeable between manufacturers?

 


 XRAID isn't really proprietary - it is built on top of standard RAID, and is intended to simplify expansion.  So that's not the problem.

 

The real issue with migrating is that the NAS actually boots from the disks.  The drivers, etc are customized to the NAS hardware, so the disks won't boot if you migrate to another vendor's NAS.  FWIW, they won't boot if you migrate to various other ReadyNAS platforms either.  Though you can't directly migrate, it is possible to transfer data to a different NAS over the network - either for backup purposes or when migrating to a new platform.  The ReadyNAS backup jobs can be used for this (preferably set up to use rsync).  Other vendors (Synology, Qnap, etc) have similar capabilities, and they can also be used to get the data from the ReadyNAS (or put their files onto the ReadyNAS).

 

Message 5 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Thank you again Stephen!


Do you have a link/tutorial on how to update the system to OS-6 firmware? As you say I might as well do that while I'm at this juncture. I'll look into getting more ram too, although I think it maxes out at 2GB (it only has it's factory 1GB right now)

 

 

Message 6 of 19
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

It actually maxes out at 8GB, 4 per slot.  But the 4GB sticks of 2RX8 RAM needed to do that are pricy, when you can find them.  I went to 4GB on mine, though 2 is typically enough.

 

2GB PC2-6400 sticks are easy to find cheap on eBay.  The 4GB are rare because it takes a 64-bit OS to use them, and few had that when DDR2 memory was top of the line except on servers, which can generally use the 2RX4 RAM.  Make sure you get "low density" 2RX8 (or 1RX8 for some sizes), not "high density" 2RX4 memory, as the latter will not work.

Message 7 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@javelindesign wrote:

Thank you again Stephen!


Do you have a link/tutorial on how to update the system to OS-6 firmware? 

 

 


If you want to make sure your NAS is running the newest Bios, you can install BIOS_Update_Package_0.5-x86.bin as an add-on first.

 

Basic instructions are

  1. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP
  2. Download PREPR4TOR6_0.1-x86.bin and install it as an add-on. Do not reboot afterwards (avoids the need to do manual factory resets)
  3. Download R4toR6_6.9.5.bin and install it as a firmware update
  4. After you reboot, it will update the firmware and start a factory default. 
  5. After setting up the NAS you can update to the newest firmware.
Message 8 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Thanks again Stephen!

 

Acutally, just for giggles, I put in a NEW 4TB red drive where I previously had that 3TB drive (in bay 6... now it says it's restriping... 14% done now.. probably take another day or two to finish. Do you think it's possibly restriping anything useful? Or is it just restriping junk. You alluded to needing to know what capacity drives did what in a RAID.. I obviously do not 🙂 - but I am sort of hoping/thinking that that 4TB drive will now allow the volumes to restripe/re-mount? Or is that a fools dream??? Screen shots attached...

 

@StephenB 

Message 9 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@javelindesign wrote:

 

Acutally, just for giggles, I put in a NEW 4TB red drive where I previously had that 3TB drive (in bay 6... now it says it's restriping... 14% done now.. probably take another day or two to finish. Do you think it's possibly restriping anything useful? Or is it just restriping junk.


I don't that it's doing anything useful, though you could leave it running I guess.  I will say that the kind of thing that you just did generally makes recovery more difficult (or impossible).  Anything that results in more writes to the disks tends to increase the damage.

 

Your system has five RAID groups (three small ones dedicated to the operating system, and two that form the C volume).  The three OS RAID groups are functioning (since the system booted), but are possibly degraded.  It's possible that the two RAID groups in the data volume have inconsistent states (for instance, the "spare" 4 TB disk might be a spare in one of those RAID groups but not both). 

 

The GUI information can get muddied when the RAID groups become inconsistent.  It's a bit hard to see exactly what's happening - perhaps you could download the log zip and post mdstat.log (best to just copy/paste it into a reply).

 

But you should either get serious about recovery (which will cost), or just do a factory reset with the disks you want to use in place, and then put back whatever data you have on backups/other systems.  If you are doing the reset anyway, it would be a convenient time to convert to OS-6. 

 


@javelindesign wrote:

You alluded to needing to know what capacity drives did what in a RAID.. I obviously do not 🙂


RAID creates a virtual disk (that spans all your drives).  The NAS then puts a file system on top of that virtual disk, and that file system is the "C" volume.

 

I mentioned RAID groups above, and that is a key idea in understanding what's going on with unequal size disks.

 

If you start with 5x1TB, then the C volume would use a single RAID group.  There would be a single data volume partition on each drive, and the NAS would construct that RAID group using those partitions.  This group is using RAID-5.

 

When you then upgrade one drive to 4 TB, the system recreates that partition, using what is on the other 4 drives.  (It also rebuilds the three operating system partitions, but let's ignore those for now).  While that's happening the volume is resyncing.  It won't expand at that point, because there is no way to create redundancy for the remaining 3 TB on that drive.

 

When you upgrade the second drive to 4 TB, the system will first rebuild that RAID-5 group again (creating the partition on the new disk, and reconstructing the contents of that partition from the other drives).  But now it is possible to build a second RAID group with redundancy from the extra space on the new 4 TB drive.  So the system will create two new 3 TB partitions (one on each 4 TB drive), which fills the available space. It then forms a second RAID group that uses these partitions.  That group uses RAID-1, not RAID-5.  That new group is then joined (concatenated) to the virtual disk, and the file system is then expanded to use all the space.  You can visualize this as a tiered wedding cake.  The bottom layer is wider (5 disks wide), and 1 TB high.  The top layer isn't as wide (just two disks) and is three times the height of the bottom layer (3 TB high).  

 

If you were to then upgrade a third drive to 4 TB, the system puts the same partition structure on it as the other two 4 TB drives.  The first RAID group is rebuilt as before.  The second RAID group is horizontally expanded (and converted from RAID-1 to RAID-5).  The upper layer gets wider (3 disks), but has the same 3 TB height as before.

 

But if you were to try upgrade a third drive to 3 TB (as you did), then expansion process gets complicated, and Netgear has chosen not to attempt it automatically.  Instead of simply expanding the second RAID group, it would need to split that RAID-1 group into two - converting each of two 3 TB partitions into a 2 TB partition and a 1 TB partition (making a three layer cake, with the middle layer being 3 disks wide but only 2 TB high).  XRAID never splits a RAID group.  It will create new ones when you add larger disks, and but it won't split an existing group.

 

FWIW, there are two additional expansion constaints in your NAS (which aren't documented in the manual).  The first is that the C volume will not expand over 16 TiB.  The second is that the C volume won't expand more then 8 TiB from it's original size.  

 

The first constaint would allow you to upgrade to 5x4 TB (16 TB volume), but you wouldn't be able to upgrade to 6x4TB (20 TB volume).

 

But if you started with 5x1 TB, the second constraint kicks in first.  You'd start with a 4 TB volume (3.63 TiB), so your expansion would be limited to 11.63 TiB (12.79 TB). 3x4TB + 2x1 TB would give you a 10 TB volume.  Trying to upgrade to 4x4TB+1 TB would give you 13 TiB - which is just over the 12.79 TB limit.  So that exansion would fail.

 

One advantage of converting to OS 6 is that those two expansion constraints were removed in OS-6.  It still won't split a RAID group, but there is no known expansion limit.  So you could start with 5x1 TB drives, and upgrade to 5x16TB if you wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

Message 10 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Oops.. thought I replied, but it got lost so forgive me if 2 replied pop up here..

 

Thanks again for all your on-going support!

 

You were right.. the striping finsihed and same "lifesupport" status and no mountable drives. No worries.. I'm going to clear out everything and do a factory fresh start - and also use the opportunity to try out the lastest OS (if I can get it installed).


A few specific questions...

 

1) If I update to the latest OS, can I get by with 1GB of ram until I order more?

 

2) How much ram should I order.. Should I shoot for 2x 1GB or 2x 2GB for a total of 4GB?

 

3) I have 3 old (9 years) 1TB drives now, one of which I KNOW is going bad quickly. So I wasn't plan on using that... Then I have 2x 4TB WD RED drives (about 2 years old), a NEW 4TB RED drive and a NEW 3TB Red drive. I was planning on just using the newest drives in the array and ditching the old 1TB drives. Would that be ok to use? 4TB - 4TB - 4TB - 3TB? I know I might not get the full capacity of the 3rd 4TB drive from what it sounds like.. that's ok.. I'll have more than enough sotrage, and those are the drives I have at my disposal at the moment.

 

Thanks!

 

Jay

 

Message 11 of 19
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

PC2-6400 RAM is so cheap today, why be stingy with just 2GB?  You can get by for now with 1GB, since that's all some older NAS have, but you'll see some improvements when you increase it.  At some point, too litle RAM may cause disabling of functions (like AV on the 100 series already).  The motherboard RAM configuration is not dual-channel, so you can even just add 2GB for 3GB total and not take a speed hit.

 

As long as you start with the 3TB included, then you can later add 3TB, 4TB, or something bigger.  If you start with just 4TB, you can't add anything smaller later, except as a separate volume (after disabling XRAID).

 

If your NAS part number ends with -100 (based on age, I suspect it does), then you also have an older, slower processor, and you might want to update that at some point.  The -200 doesn't have the latest, fastest the motherboard can handle, but what little more you can get isn't worth the effort, IMHO.  It's certainly not as simple to upgrade  CPU as putting in a couple memory sticks.

 

Before you update, making sure you are running the latest BIOS version is also a good idea.  It's a lot easier to update on 4.2.x because there is an add-on for it.  Of course, you only really need the update to go past a certain point in CPU version, so you may not care.

Message 12 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Just wanted to give a status update - AND ANOTHER THANK YOU!

 

I reset the NAS, updated to the latest OS6 software, running now with 2x4TB, 1x3TB drives.. I have a 3rd 4TB drive that I will confirm is good and re-add. I've also ordered a 4GB ram kit (2x2GB), which should be here any day.. It's up and running, running PLEX and I can connect to it again with my Roku - so THANK YOU!!!

Message 13 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Sorry.. ONE more question - so I bought a new little USB/External Drive connector and I can now see the drive on my desktop computer. My Mac doesn't recognize it as a mountable drive (obvioulsy), but I'd like to clear/format the drive so it's "accepted" into the NAS when I plug it in.. What format do I need to use to erase/format the drive so the NAS does what it needs to? 

 

I haven't used The WD lifeguard app (or whatever its called) because I don't have a Windows machine at home.. only Mac, but I CAN if needed.

 

Thanks again!

Message 14 of 19
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

You actually want to unformat it by removing all partitions.

Message 15 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@Sandshark wrote:

You actually want to unformat it by removing all partitions.


I'm not a Mac user, but I think that is a two-step process with macOS - done with the drive utility.  At least that is what this guide says: https://www.imore.com/how-remove-hard-drive-partition-your-mac

Message 16 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

 

 

@StephenB 

 

StephenB,

 

Thanks again so much.. my Pioneer Pro is up and running nicely with the latest OS..

 

I have an OLD ReadyNAS DUO (Version 1 (ordered 9/29/2008)) - Would I be able to update that to the latest OS6 software/firmware with the same instructions you gave me?

Message 17 of 19
StephenB
Guru

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E


@javelindesign wrote:

 

I have an OLD ReadyNAS DUO (Version 1 (ordered 9/29/2008)) - Would I be able to update that to the latest OS6 software/firmware with the same instructions you gave me?


No.  That's a sparc-based NAS, and it can only run 4.1.x firwmare.  The current firmware for is 4.1.16.

Message 18 of 19
javelindesign
Aspirant

Re: I'm think I'm in big trouble with my 10 (or so) year old RNDP600E

Ah bummer.. I thought that might be the case.. Thanks anyway for letting me know and again for the Pioneer! It's like a new machine!.. still a BIT slow, but does what I need!

Message 19 of 19
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