Re: Data recovery from failed NAS

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-22

I've seen a few posts here similar to mine where the hardware has failed but the RAID was intact and had no issues at the time of hardware failure.

In my case the unit simply wont turn on after a successful shutdown.

Since Netgear has probably received enough complaints and failed units to analyse the issue, is it that the PSU has failed or worse?

If yes and since I just want to get my data off the unit, would hooking it up to a replacement PSU (even an ATX one?) mean a valid boot?

And yes, I can see the LAN LEDs blinking.

StephenB · ‎2017-10-22

If you are seeing leds blinking on the NAS, then the PSU hasn't completely failed.

Have you used RAIDar to see if it detects the NAS status? https://kb.netgear.com/20684/ReadyNAS-Downloads#raidar

FWIW, your firmware on both NAS is seriously out of date - something you should take care of after this is resolved.

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-22

The blinking LEDs are on the back, the LAN port. The NAS itself is not turning 'on', so I doubt RAIDar can detect it 😞

Will try without any HDDs to see if it at least turns on.

I hadn't used the forums in ages so the update is from years ago wrt the FW listed in my signature 🙂 I'm running the latest stable version.

Sandshark · ‎2017-10-22

The LAN ports are powered by the 5VSB (5V standby) power in the PSU in order to allow WoL. The power-on circuitry is as well. But if one of the other voltages is bad, that could certainly be the issue. Failure to power up after an orderly shut-down is a common symptom of a PSU issue, though it could be something else. The supply may be capable of handling the continuous load but not the start-up surge, so testing the supply unloaded may not tell you anything, but you can still try it.

If it's the Pro Pioneer that has failed, then hooking up a standard ATX supply externally is very straight forward (I stop short of easy because it does require a fair amount of case disassembly). Connection is one-for-one with the 24-pin ATX, 4-pin CPU, and 3 4-pin HD connectors. If your supply has only two of the 4-pin Molex HD connectors, that's good enough fo a test. If it's the NV+, you'll need an adapter cable. While the connector looks like a standard 20-pin ATX one, it's not wired the same and connecting a standard supply without an adapter can damage the NAS and/or supply.

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-22

Thanks! This is for the Pro Pioneer. Powering it on without any HDDs did not yield any results.

I'll try it with an external PSU.

I've done a PSU swap before so I know the internals.

I might be fortunate enough to get my hands on a cheap used Pro Pioneer unit, I presume a HDD-swap is easy enough to allow me to access the data in the new unit?

Unfortunately Netgear has never admitted it but this is something they should have taken care of years ago when the failure rate of PSUs was made apparent. It's disappointing and having seen it on both the NV+ and the Pro Pioneer, I've just about had it with Netgear and their NAS line.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2017-10-22

@TechZ1 wrote:

Unfortunately Netgear has never admitted it but this is something they should have taken care of years ago when the failure rate of PSUs was made apparent. It's disappointing and having seen it on both the NV+ and the Pro Pioneer, I've just about had it with Netgear and their NAS line.

There was a known range of NV/NV+ units that had PSUs that were known to have a much higher than acceptable premature failure rate. We had a Service Action about this and routinely replaced the PSUs for affected units even after the warranty expired. However all affected units would be at least around 10 years old, so failure now certainly couldn't be called premature, and we've run/been running out of stock of what PSUs were left in stock.

There was no such Service Action for the Pro.

After the disks, PSUs in a PC are probably one of the next most likely components to fail. The Pro Pioneer had a 3 year limited hardware warranty, so for the PSU to last 2, possibly 3 times that long it's lasted well beyond the warranty length. Some PSUs last longer than others.

@TechZ1 wrote:

I might be fortunate enough to get my hands on a cheap used Pro Pioneer unit, I presume a HDD-swap is easy enough to allow me to access the data in the new unit?

It wouldn't need to be a Pro Pioneer. It could be the Pro Business Edition, Pro 6, Ultra 6, Ultra 6 Plus or if you were only using 4 drive bays, it could be one of the 4-bay units (except I wouldn't go with the NVX, NVX Pioneer, 1500 or 2100v1 as those are 32-bit). The firmware is designed to handle moving disks from one model to another. It's recommended that after you move the disks across that you go to Status > Health in Frontview and recalibrate the fan.

I would recommend putting a scratch disk in the replacement unit, making sure the firmware is at least as recent as what you had on your old unit and if not upgrading the firmware, powering down, removing the scratch disk and then moving your disks across.

However do note that a second hand unit has no warranty so it would be a lot better to buy a new model.

We do have a procedure to use a new x86 ReadyNAS (e.g. RN426, RN526X, RN626X, RN528X, RN628X or the older RN316, RN516 and RN716X) to attempt to recover data from your legacy x86 unit. You would need somewhere to backup your data to. See ReadyNAS: Migrating disks from RAIDiator 4.2 to ReadyNAS OS 6 (x86)

Migrating disks from an old unit to a new unit working smoothly does assume that the disks and the RAID, OS and volume on the disks are all in good condition. This may not be the case.

RAIDiator-x86 uses mdadm RAID, lvm2 and the EXT4 filesystem. So assuming the disks, RAID and data volume are in good condition it should be straightforward to recover the data using an ordinary x86 Linux machine. So that's another option (though you attempt doing that at your own risk).

If your data is important to you then it is important to backup your data whether that be to USB disks, another NAS, the Cloud or some place else. RAID is great, but it doesn't protect you against any and every possible problem you may face.

Sandshark · ‎2017-10-22

I have not found the failure rate of the ReadyNAS power supplies, save the ones replaced for free, to be any worse than most PC power supplies. The difference is simply that many keep a NAS much longer than a PC since the speed increases in newer technology are not as critical for many NAS users. So, the power supply in the NAS wears out before it is discarded while a power supply in a PC is thrown away with the PC long before it can fail. Both of your units are certainly long in the tooth. Are you still using any PC's of similar age?

If you've replaced a supply before and it was for this same unit, I would wonder why you are having more trouble than is typical. The Pro Pioneer is getting to the age where a lot of PSU failures occur, but not two. Of course, you then also know that the supply is a straight-up Seasonic power supply with nothing unique except the wire harness. Maybe you'd be better off bumping up the wattage with a SILVERSTONE ST45SF 450W SFX12V. It's only a bit more money.

The failure I do see in Netgear is failure to provide replacement parts or even repair service for out-of-warranty units. I recognize they can't stock them forever, their supplier isn't going to make them forever and keeping a horde of them is expensive, but they should have some initial supply.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2017-10-22

It'll be 3 years or 5 years from the first sale (depending on the model) before units are out of warranty. It's not viable for us to purchase replacement parts for sale in the numbers we would need to to get them at a reasonable price. Then there's stocking them in various locations around the world, providing replacement instructions and the issue that we don't consider the internal PSU a user replaceable part in most of the desktop units we've ever released.

I understand the concern but for the most part it's not practical for us to sell replacement parts and it's certainly not practical for us to sell out of warranty hardware repairs.

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-23

@mdgm wrote:
It'll be 3 years or 5 years from the first sale (depending on the model) before units are out of warranty. It's not viable for us to purchase replacement parts for sale in the numbers we would need to to get them at a reasonable price. Then there's stocking them in various locations around the world, providing replacement instructions and the issue that we don't consider the internal PSU a user replaceable part in most of the desktop units we've ever released.

I understand the concern but for the most part it's not practical for us to sell replacement parts and it's certainly not practical for us to sell out of warranty hardware repairs.

I also had the NV+ and the power supply fail and then failed again on the replacement unit. So something is definitely wrong with the PSU Netgear has sourced or the design or its usage. It was a nightmare for me to get the replacement unit under warranty as well, but that's another story and documented elsewhere. The fact that Netgears forums are full of such threads is a fairly good indicator of the situation. If Netgear had been 'better' about the NV+ fiasco, they would have done more to replace the PSUs - look at how other manufacturers behave nowadays. Sadly the NV+ is an old story.

The Pro Pioneer was not a 200$ budget/consumer device, it was a prosumer device and a NAS to boot, not an off the shelf computer. It had a strict purpose in its design and sadly (IMHO), Netgear has failed to deliver in that regard.

Yes, good PSUs and computer components in my posession have lasted 8+ years and where it's known to have bad caps, I've managed to fix them to keep the hardware running.

A NAS is expected to operate 24/7/365 and for the asking price, an end-user like myself expected better.

@mdgm wrote:
I would recommend putting a scratch disk in the replacement unit, making sure the firmware is at least as recent as what you had on your old unit and if not upgrading the firmware, powering down, removing the scratch disk and then moving your disks across.

Thanks, I'll do that! It's hard to find the older model for a throwaway price and while I can go the linux route, I am going to just use the 2nd hand unit to copy my data off first. The network settings will obviously follow what is on my Disks, right?

I'm sure Netgear would be happy to have me invest in their devices (again), but I am somewhat fed-up being tied down to this solution that has had more issues than I care for, I am fortunate that I can build my own solution and I'll do that. Parts are way easier to replace in the scenario where you build your own box...

Sorry if I sound bitter, but my experience with two seperate devices has been poor. I use Netgear networking equipment heavily and have had way better experience with it.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2017-10-23

We sold a huge number of NV/NV+ units. The NV was released in Feb 2006 and it wasn’t until November 2011 that we released the NV+ v2 (a very different product, but that’s another story).

We sold a lot of the Pro as well, but with the higher price the quantity wasn’t as big.

It’s natural that users that have issues are far more likely to post than those that don’t.

Personally I have lots of ReadyNAS units and have never had a PSU fail in any of them. I have two NV+ units but both are newer than those in the range for the Service Action.

Some PSUs do last longer than others. It’s unfortunate that the PSU in your Pro failed, but hardware can fail at any time.

StephenB · ‎2017-10-23

@TechZ1 wrote:

I also had the NV+ and the power supply fail and then failed again on the replacement unit. So something is definitely wrong with the PSU Netgear has sourced or the design or its usage.

There was an issue there that surfaced shortly after Netgear acquired Infrant. Netgear did take corrective steps there via a service action, which provided free PSU replacements for affected products. That continued until quite recently (when Netgear ran out of parts).

TechZ1 wrote:Sorry if I sound bitter, but my experience with two seperate devices has been poor.

Certainly everyone has their own story. I had a run of failures on Seagate disks some years ago, and switched to WDC. Other folks here had precisely the opposite experience.

My oldest NAS are an NV+ v1 (2010), a duo v1 (2009), and an pro-6 (2011). All are still in service (as backup NAS). One power supply failed (on the NV+ v1, in 2015 - shortly before the warranty expired).

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-24

An update for anyone who's following...

I acquired a used ReadyNAS Pro 6 and started it up with a scratch disk as per the recommendation. It had the "Could not mount root raid" error. After a few Factory Resets, OS Reinstalls and finally a USB recovery to FW 4.2.30 (more on this later), I finally managed to set it up and it's now functioning properly.

It's currently running a Memory test since I don't want to risk my disks in a machine that may have corrupt RAM.

Back to the FW, I cannot recall if I left my Pro Pioneer on 4.2.28 or upgraded to 4.2.30, so I went with 4.2.30 since the .31 has only a small fix (for Samba) and it's likely I hadn't yet updated to it. I know its a risk using my disks in essentially a system that may have newer Firmware, but I'd like to hear the views from you guys on this.

Some cleanup required on the support site:

1. The following page directs users to the 'latest' FW and it links to 4.2.30 and not 4.2.31 https://kb.netgear.com/20684/ReadyNAS-Downloads#software

2. The USB Recovery Tool also points to an older FW 4.2.28 https://kb.netgear.com/30267/RAIDiator-4-2-USB-Recovery-Tool

Ideally all links should point to 4.2.31 now https://kb.netgear.com/000038793/RAIDiator-x86-Version-4-2-31

StephenB · ‎2017-10-24

Your post confused me a bit, because you have out-of-date firmware info in your signature line

I've passed the two pages to Netgear folks, so hopefully they will update those pages soon.

TechZ1 · ‎2017-10-24

Sorry about that! It'll get updated soon.

So any thoughts on putting my 6 disks back in a system that has slightly newer firmware?

I presume the scratchdisk I used and RAID setup I did has no impact since that's at an OS level on that disk only.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2017-10-24

The flash having newer firmware wouldn't be a problem. The NAS will detect the mismatch and update the firmware on the disks to match what's on the flash.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2017-10-27

The links have been updated.

StephenB · ‎2017-10-27

@TechZ1 wrote:

Ideally all links should point to 4.2.31 now https://kb.netgear.com/000038793/RAIDiator-x86-Version-4-2-31

They do now.