Unfortunately Level2 have told me that the drive has known issues that they just cannot deal with. They recommend to either exchange the drive or wait for a firmware fix from Seagate.
I wrote to Seagate and ask when can I expect new firmware. They replied to me: "We do not have news of any upcoming firmware update for those barracuda drives. Usually, it is announced ahead of time."
We backup 5 ESX servers (with ghettoVCB) to our Ultra 6+ with 6 of these ST2000DL003s every day. After losing several disks, we factory reset and rebuilt with X-RAID2 with dual redundancy and removed the Time Machine backups to the NAS. That's been running peacefully for a month or so, but our trust in it is very limited...
Its a pity because they are great devices - the NFS performance is great for ESX backup and even for ESX NFS datastores, but it would be really important for Netgear to take a clear position on this to reestablish trust. I, for one, cannot recommend ReadyNAS to our customers as long as Netgear includes what appear to be dysfunctional configurations in its HCL list.
I'm currently working with Support to find out why a 2 to 4 disk X-RAID2 Expansion on an Ultra 4+ is only including 3 disks. I did have a drive reported as Dead during Restriping, but a reboot allowed it to continue. The drive that was reported as Dead is not included in the RAID array but shows as an Available disk. All SMART tests and the units own Boot Menu Disk Test shows no errors.
All the 4 drives are these same 2TB Seagate units, but my firmware is different to what I can see in all the above posts (I have CC3C not CC32). Having not read this Forum until after choosing my drives from the HCL, I was feeling very doomed, but if my firmware version is newer, might there be some light at the end of the tunnel??
What happens after the failure? Is the data lost or will it just recover after the drive is detected again? Will the volumes remain?
I have a setup with no redudancy A Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 RNDU2120 (one 2TB Seagate was included) + an additional Seagate Drive This is configured with one raid1 volume per drive Yes, I know I will lose half of my data in case on of the drive fails, but the data is not critical. I need all the 4TB and I couldn't afford a Ultra 4 with raid5. So I'm prepared to loose data in case of a real disc crash, but is my data also in danger due to this incorrectly detected disc dead?
I really hope your answer is that the volumes is just rebuilt without data loss 🙂
I'm not using mac. Since I added the second driver I have copied about 3TB of data back and forth within 24 hours with no problem while streaming to a media player at the same time.
I know that there are also issues with some WD discs that requires the idle time to be changed in the drive in order to wake up fast enough or else the raid functionality in the Readynas will drop drives. But the Seagate issue is more about heavy load and not starting from idle (I suppose).
Strange that the drive is actually delivered with a seagate drive if this problem is common.
What about the fix that was somewhat promised for Q1 2012? Was that a fix in the Readynas or in the Seagate firmware?
Disregard the post below! It didn't work. I just had a disk fail under these settings.
Summary: The good: I think I found a fix for this problem. The bad: It can slow the NAS down significantly. The (possible) fix: Disable jumbo frames, enable full data journaling. Does it work: Probably? 😄 -- Update: No. It doesn't. I just had a disk fail.
Details, history, background: I wanted to give an update on my latest experiences with this issue. I first posted here on March 27, 2011. After my last incident I posted about, I managed to complete a Time Machine backup and copy all the data I needed to copy to the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus. For 8 months or so, it was simply handling incremental time machine backups from one Macbook Pro, copying the occasional movie or folder of photos, and that was about it. No disk failures. No heavy activity, either. Everything seemed fine.
Two weeks ago, I added a new Mac Pro to the network and attempted to complete a Time Machine backup. Over the course of 5 or 6 days of it simply trying to complete it's first backup of about 220 GB, I had three disk failures. The backup simply didn't complete without the RAID reporting a disk as failed. Each time it was a different disk. Each time, the power was cycled, NAS rebooted, and disk rebuilt in about 12 hours and I'd restart Time Machine.
What I changed: I wondered if I disabled some features that made the NAS go faster if that would solve the problem. So, under:
System > Peformance > UNchecked "Disable full data journaling." Network > Interfaces > Ethernet 1 tab > (scroll down) > Performance Settings > UNchecked "Enable jumbo frames."
also, for good measure, I disabled the iTunes Streaming Server, which I realized I was never using. (Services > Streaming Services > iTunes Streaming Server).
That's it. That's all I changed. Left "Disk write cache" enabled as before.
Results: Good stuff: No disk failures. (yet.) My Time Machine backup completed without a disk failure, which it wasn't doing before. (in fact, it wasn't even completing at all before) I've tried copying a big folder over from one machine (~300 GB, mix of large and small files) while initiating a Time Machine backup on the other machine and had no failures, which was previously prime failure time.
Bad stuff: It seems noticeably slower, though I didn't empirically test it. Watching network IO rate during an AFP file copy of lots of small files and it can be down to 2 or 3 MB/s. Large files (~1GB) will still copy at around 40 to 60 MB/s, though this is still slower than the 80 or 90 MB/s I'd previously get.
Conclusion: I actually don't care if my ReadyNAS doesn't go crazy fast. Data security / no drive failures is more important to me. I mostly use the NAS as a backup solution for Time Machine, work projects, photos, videos, music, movies, etc. Files get copied there, freeing up space somewhere else, and they sit there for months or years. I don't actually work on projects off the drive (I do video and animation) so the IO speed isn't that big of a deal.
Remaining Questions / Anybody wanna help?: Because I changed two things, I don't know if it was full data journaling, jumbo frames, or the combination of both that's seemingly fixing the problem. (surely the iTunes server had nothing to do with it.) It would be nice if someone tried just disabling one or the other and seeing if they don't have any more problems. It seems feasible that just doing one or the other thing could solve the problem and the NAS might not take such a performance hit, though I honestly don't have the time or inclination to test it.
If someone wants to try it both ways and can work with the NAS not going at full tilt speed, that would be great. i.e., dear forum reader, go and either turn on data journaling or off jumbo frames and then report back if you have/don't-have a disk failure.
I also didn't do a reliable/repeatable benchmark to check the actual difference in speeds this is causing. Someone might want to take a look at that. Would be nice to know what effect data journaling vs jumbo frames vs both has.
... and, of course, it's completely feasible that I'll have a failure tomorrow and there's absolutely no relation to all the stuff I'm saying. (Update: I just did. It doesn't work.) This just seemed noteworthy enough at the time to mention here.
Looking forward to getting this all sorted out without having to buy an entire batch of new drives. Thanks for reading.
I removed that full data journaling at the end of December. The next day one of the disks died, but after that everything is working without any problems.
Just to confirm, by "removed that full data journaling," do you mean that you unchecked "disable full data journaling," thus, enabling it? Also, what level of load has your NAS been getting since your last failure? Light, occasional use or more frequent heavy use?
CitizenPlain, thanks for looking into this so much!
At christmas I purchased an NV+ V2 and like everyone else here, I've had randomly occurring disk fails. I'm running 3 3TB drives from 3 different manufacturers (Hitachi, WD, Seagate) and all 3 have randomly failed at various times and all 3 were brand new. A simple restart of the device and a resync and it will work again for a day or two.
We've been doing large file transfers and a Time Machine backup from a mac pro, so I'm hoping you are right! I will try unchecking the "disabling full data journaling" and disabling jumbo frames. I will post my results when I can.
I have use NAS always the same, TimeMachine, EyeTV, storage, not very heavy load. Before Lion I don't have big problem with NAS, only few disk "death." After Lion that started to happen a couple times a week.
Hrm. Anecdotally, at least, seems like this may not fix the problem if jrpNAS just had a failure. I'll be curious to hear how things go with Skywalker or anyone else that would care to try the settings. Still good here, but only with light use for the last few days.
Few days ago I borrowed PC and I tested the failed disk Seagates software. Seatools find several Bad LBA:s. I took the disk back to the store for exchange. Today I get new disk. New Disk has new firmware CC3C, not CC32 what Seagate says the latest.
Sounds like it could have been something that was corrupt in the OS. Hence the reason the technician had you test the disks and then if all was good, reinstall the firmware (OS reinstall). It's always a good idea to have a backup drive regardless. The usual recommendation is to replace the drive after 50 reallocated sectors. I have seen the drives functioning well beyond that number though. Sounds like you have a sound plan.
I don't believe the problem is corrupt OS. When I start use Ultra 4 I have only 2 disk. I use only one disk 2 or 3 days without problem. Then I buy UPS and put second drive in the NAS. Next day drive 1 died. I take disk out and put it back and everything start working well. Then I update Mac OS to Lion, update RAIDiator and put third disk to NAS. Few days later drive 1 was died. I take disk out, put back and rebuild array like earlier. Next day same happened drive 2 and day after drive 3 doing same. After many deaths I slower the NAS by changing the settings.
If you use google, You find many others have similar "death" problems with Seagate ST2000DL003 disks. I sent email to Seagate, but they have not heard of the problem.
6 months ago, I bought 4 seagate ST2000DL003-9VT166, I install in a synology disk station CS407. after fews days disks started to die ! My Synology NAS, is very slow and it take 2 days to rebuild on disk. after 2 months of test, several firmware update, the problem was the same ! Synology support told me that I am not using disk supported in the official disk list recommended, So they can do nothing to help me.
I have decided to buy a NEW NAS, I select ready nas plus ultra 6. put my 4 disk ST2000DL003-9VT166. after 2 weeks perfect, all the disks are dying one after the other. So the problem is not the NAS but those bad drives !
Someone have got an official answer from seagate ? could we request to seagate to change our disks ? thanks for your support
DO NOT BUY SEAGATE ST2000DL003 DRIVES FOR YOUR READYNAS
I've just had Disk 4 report a failure (listed as Dead in Frontview), and after a hot remove/replace (with no reboot), the drive is alive again and resyncing. I've previously posted about a different drive being reported as dead during an expansion (from 2 to 4 disks), which needed a factory reset and restore from USB backup.
All 4 of my drives have the following model number / firmware: -
Model: ST2000DL003-9VT166 Firmware: CC3C
With my experience and all the posts here, I don't feel I can trust these drives with my data and will replace them all as soon as I can. Up to now, I've not lost any data, but all it takes is 2 drives to report as failed in short succession...
I've just bought a Ultra 4 NAS, and guess which drives?!! HA ha ha. It is kinda funny.
The latest incarnation of these drives has part no ST2000DL003 9VT166-302, with the CC3C firmware.
Now, I haven't actually got my NAS yet, but the drives have arrived. Any suggestions for testing the drives before the NAS turns up? Maybe run the long test in Seatools?
Does anyone else have problems with the 9VT166-302 variants?
I can't find anything that says "-302" after the 9VT166 for mine. The Newegg page I originally ordered from in March, 2011 doesn't seem to have more specific info, but it's this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822148681
The suggestions you made didn't seem to apply to my device. My NV+ V2 didn't have those options available anywhere.
Anyway, i'm using a ST33000651AS, ST3000DM001, and HDS723030ALA640. All of which are on the HCL of course. I've verified them with the manufacturer diag tools with the advanced/long tests. I had to warranty one of the drives because of a diag failure so i've been waiting on the new disk. But now they're finally all good and pass the tests.
I am still getting the random drive fail issue though. I contacted netgear support and they suggested i do the OS reinstall on the device. I thought that worked because after resyncing, it never sent me an email about a drive issue. After i got home from work, i was all excited to find that the drives still listed as redundant and active. But about 10 seconds after accessing the Health page, Drive 1 flipped to inactive and failed.
I'm assuming that this means that the drive went to sleep or went into a power-save mode, and due to inactivity the NAS had not checked it until i called up the Health page.
Is it possible that ReadyNAS is completely intolerant of having to wait for a drive to spin up?
I've warrantied the device once, factory reset it who knows how many times, replaced and tested all the drives, and ran the OS reinstall. What else could it be?
I too have a NV+ V2 and constantly get a drive reported as "dead". I have 4x 1TB drives either WD or Seagate and a simple re-boot will normally restore all the NAS drive(s) to operation. Sometimes I can go a week or two without any "failures" and then it will happen to drive 4 and the next day to drive 2. When the drive dies the system reports the array as non-redundant until I re-boot and then it seems happy again. Sometimes it will re-sync and sometimes not, no real pattern that I can detect.
Like everyone here I suspect the NV+ V2 of intolerance when waiting for a drive to spin up after "sleeping" but....
This weekend I am planning to do a factory re-set and begin the long process of restoring, but I'm loosing faith with my V2 system. (incidentally I have a V1 NV+ that works a dream and has done for years, so I am a little disapointed to experience so many problems with the V2) I was hoping for more.
Got an answer from a l3 that they are working on a fix and it is expected to arrive in Q1 2012
Soon Q1 has passed without a fix being released. I have installed the latest update but no luck - the problem persists on my Ultra 2.
I have got a feeling that the error only exists on some layers - for instance the leds on the front panel light up as if both disks are online and redundant, and each time I remove the faulty disk, shut down, replace it and power up again I receive the status message "Data volume will be rebuilt with disk 1". Still the Frontview displays the disk as dead.
When I connect the drive to my PC it is possible to access without problems...
