I run a NAS Duo v1 with seagate 1TB drive (RND2110) on a network with 2-4 clients, both Macs and PCs, both wireless and ethernet. The Macs access the NAS using CIFS. This setup has run without problems for close to 3 years. Since I started the network I've added a PC and replaced the router but no problems, save for some issues with file permissions that I trace to mixing AFP and CIFS in the early days.
After transferring a large set of files Saturday night to the NAS from a USB-attached device (via wireless-connected PC), the NAS dropped its connection to all computers. I could not use FrontView from any computer, and RAIDar did not see the NAS. I restarted my PCs and the router, but the NAS itself would not shut down and I had to disconnect the power cable.
After restarting it was able to connect again. But Sunday after copying a large set of files from the NAS to a Mac hard drive (via ethernet), there was another connection drop, and inability to access RAIDar or FrontView. I have a printer connected through the NAS and attempted to print to it, but could not. Mac network diagnostics saidthe server connection has failed. I tried updating the firmware from 4.1.8 to 4.1.10, but on reboot the network connection has dropped out again.
Prior to this, in the past few days I that opening FrontView was very slow and I had to restart my browser several times to connect.
I am assuming this is a disk issue, but I am wondering if there could be a firmware issue as well. Does the NAS warranty cover the Hard Drive or only the NAS "shell"?
If it is a disk issue, can I simply swap in the HDD I've been using to backup, that mirrors my NAS's file structure? I've never had to change out a hard drive so not sure what i can get away with.
Thanks in advance for any idea or insight. System info and error logs below.
NAS Duo RND2110 Asus RT-N16 router iMac intel mid-2007 - OS X 10.5.8 - ethernet Dell XPS - Windows 7 - wireless Dell Dimension 2400 - Windows XP - ethernet Mac/PC laptops (occasional) backups to USB-attached hard drive via docking station via NAS built-in backup manager (past 6 months) backups to Mac hard drive via third-party software (past two years)
Sun Oct 21 23:02:08 EDT 2012 System is up.
Sun Oct 21 23:00:57 EDT 2012 Volume scan found no errors.
Sun Oct 21 22:40:12 EDT 2012 Rebooting device...
Sun Oct 21 22:40:11 EDT 2012 Please close this browser session and use RAIDar to reconnect to the device. System rebooting...
Sun Oct 21 17:40:53 EDT 2012 System is up.
Sun Oct 21 17:40:19 EDT 2012 ATA error count has increased in the last day. Disk 1: Previous count: 392 Current count: 2622 Growing SMART errors indicate a disk that may fail soon. If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replace the disk.
Sun Oct 21 17:38:30 EDT 2012 Improper shutdown detected. To ensure data integrity, a filesystem check should be performed by rebooting the NAS through Frontview with the volume scan option enabled.
Sun Oct 21 08:48:05 EDT 2012 System is up.
Sun Oct 21 08:40:35 EDT 2012 System powering off...
Sun Oct 21 00:05:36 EDT 2012 Backup finished. [Job 002]
Sat Oct 20 21:58:16 EDT 2012 System is up.
Sat Oct 20 21:57:32 EDT 2012 ATA error count has increased in the last day. Disk 1: Previous count: 0 Current count: 392 Growing SMART errors indicate a disk that may fail soon. If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replace the disk.
Sat Oct 20 21:54:50 EDT 2012 Improper shutdown detected. To ensure data integrity, a filesystem check should be performed by rebooting the NAS through Frontview with the volume scan option enabled.
Sat Oct 20 00:13:13 EDT 2012 Backup finished. [Job 001]
If so: 1. Buy a new disk 2. Power down NAS 3. Remove failing disk 4. Disconnect USB disk (if your backup disk is a USB disk) 5. Put the new disk in the NAS 6. Do factory default (note this will wipe the disk) 7. Restore data from backup
Note the disks in the NAS are formatted differently to USB disks etc. so no you can't move your backup disk into the NAS.
If not all the data is backed up I wouldn't risk compromising your current backup. You could try backing up the new data to another USB disk.
Thanks for clarifying that. I do back up to both USB external and my desktop's HDD. I wonder if starting my backup regime might have hastened to drive's demise. Starting 10 months ago each partition was backed up once/wk to the USB drive so it was working every night. Will I be better off just getting two disks and RAIDing them?
Your current backup strategy is fine. Disks can and do fail at any time.
RAID is good but it's no replacement for backing up your data. RAID can't protect you against things like accidental file deletion, multiple disk failures etc.
Oh and unless you have a 2100 (4-bay rackmount NAS) as well as your Duo (v1) you should change your profile.
I was thinking that having a redundant array and one external backup means less wear and tear on the NAS drives than the two external backups I currently do -- but that leaves my data more vulnerable?
I'd recommend both using RAID and the external backups that you currently do. RAID will protect against things like a single disk failure, your external backups will protect against things like accidental file deletions. See Preventing Catastrophic Data Loss
