My ol' trusty Pioneer Pro has had it. Yesterday it started a "Balance started for volume data", and now I cannot get in contact with the unit. I have restarted, but alas. When it starts up it just "freezes" on the inital boot, where it says "ReadyNAS" in the display, and the progress line keeps going left to right, and then repeats"
The crash happened right after a backup though, so I am not worried. I have a solid backup strategy, and all essential data is backup to anouther NAS.
In my Pioneer Pro there are 6 x 3TB HGST HDDs, in XRaid X, with one disk redundancy, and I wonder if I can buy any other NAS and move the HDDs into the new unit, start it up, and still have acces to the data? I wouldn't mind buying a new ReadyNAS if that is possible, but I will change manufactor if it is not.
I seem to remember the unit is using FW 6.9.1.
So, can I expect to be able to move the disks to another ReadyNAS and have it back as normal?
So, can I expect to be able to move the disks to another ReadyNAS and have it back as normal?
Yes, the disks can be migrated to an OS6 6-bay NAS.
You could even migrate to another (used) ultra or pro if you upgraded it to OS-6 first - though I don't recommend that, given that these NAS would be at least 5 years old.
I just got home, and tried booting up the NAS again. This time it went through the initial boot with progress bar, past the finding of the 6 disks, through "starting network", passed the "checking root FS", but is now stuck on "Booting... 34% ####>".
I turned it off, went into the Boot Menu, and tried skipping the volume check - the same thing happened. I then tried an OS reinstall, but the same thing happened. What's next?
I'm seeing ATA errors on all the disks. If the disks are fine then this could suggest that a chassis problem is a possibility.
Normally ATA errors (see ATA errors increasing on disk(s) in ReadyNAS) suggest a disk problem, but sometimes it can be a problem with the SATA controller or other hardware in the NAS. Obviously as hardware ages things like SATA controller failure may be more likely to be run into. Your NAS has lasted a number of years longer than the warranty length.
If it is a chassis problem then moving the disks to a new 6-bay or 8-bay x86 ReadyNAS would be a reasonable step, but you could still be in a data recovery situation. A good new system may still fail to boot off the disks.
Is there a way to verify what the problem is? I don't want to go out and buy a new NAS, just to find out I still can't get to the data.
I was thinking; what will happen if I take out the original HDDs, inset one or two new ones, and try to see if I can Factory Reset the unit, and get it up. If it can do that, wouldn't that indicate the problems are with the HDDs, and if it cannot do that, that the problem is with the NAS?
OK - I went ahead and took out the original 6 HDDs, and inserted a new one in slot 1. It booted up, like following a factury reset, and I could get into FrontView and "do things".
So, it seems it is not the unit, or at least not Slot 1.
What would happen if I try and start the unit with the original disks in it, but take out one HDD?
It would be best if you test the drives forst to see which might be the problem rather than guessing. But as a Mac person, your options there are more limited. The drive manufacturers mosly make tools for Windows.
One other thing you could do is move the single drive from slot to slot to see that they are all OK. Just power down, move it, and see that it boots; then repeat.
A weak 12V from the power supply could possible cause a problem like that if it is strong enough to spin up one drive but not all 6, but that's not a very usual condition. A single bad drive is more likely.
To be honest, I got some great help from MDGM, and he verified that the Volume was indeed dead. Maybe it was all 6 drives at the same time, or it was the chassis, but nonetheless, the Volume was a goner. Luckily enough I have backup of all data, so not much lost, and doing what I explained above, I did a Factory Default on the NAS.
And, it came back up and running, like nothing had happened. I created a new Volume, IDs, Shares, and am in the midst of copying data back onto the NAS. I KNOW, this is NOT a healthy NAS, and I will only be using it until I have bought and had some experience with a new NAS. I will continue to use it until then, making sure I take daily backups...
I am switching to another brand, away from ReadyNAS for the first time in ten years, mainly because I see other vendors moving ahead at a fast pace. I want something lightning fast, and will be switching to a QNAP TVS-1282T3, basically a NAS on steroids. I need tiered storage, fast caching, and something significantly faster than 10G network, i.e. DAS functionality via Thunderbolt 3. Why no other NAS producer offers this, why I do not know...
I have had a number of ReadyNAS boxes, from a NV+, a Duo, an Ultra 2, and finally a Pioneer Pro, and I have always liked the kind of support we could depend on here in this forum, from people like mdgm, Chirpa, DSingh, Chewbacca, and Marty_M. However, when ReadyNAS was picked up by Netgear, innovation went down the drain, and now it's time to move on...
They aren't censored but there is a spam filter in place that sometimes has false positives. Mods are supposed to check it periodically, but when it gets flooded with spam (often the case) it is hard to find the legit posts.
