My ReadyNAS started sending me emails that it was detecting errors on one of the disks. A couple days later it was dead -- wouldn't boot, no Frontview, didn't show up in Raidar, etc. I opened a ticket -- August 22. Today it's September 17. I guess support is email only, and turnaround time is 36 hours or more. Worse, support occurs in baby steps. One minute to try their suggestion and submit a reply, then 36 hours or more before the next contact.
The last comment from support on Sept 13 was "I will get back to you after I find out if it is OK to boot the NAS with only one drive." Get back to me? A support person who doesn't know whether or not I can boot Ready NAS with only one drive? I'm pretty sure I can yank a drive out while the thing is writing files without losing anything -- it is a fault tolerant redundant storage device after all. Yet here it is 4 days later and no followup.
Why in the world does the CPU get wedged because of a disk error? Isn't that the whole point, to deal with disk errors gracefully? Why do I have to have this excruciatingly slow conversation with a tech support person just to do basic troubleshooting? Shouldn't there be a FAQ that leads me through restoring firmware, booting without volume check, and other non destructive steps on my own, so I can report the status of those things in my first support contact?
Why do I have to wait in the same slow email queue as people who wonder why their streaming service breaks up, or other non-critical problems? The thing is dead, and my wife runs a home business that relies on it. Why are there so many support people that reply to my ticket, some of which have obviously not read the prior conversation?
Why does a netgear technician have to telnet into my device and poke around, requiring me to open up my router to who knows what kind of trouble? Why can't I telnet or ssh to the thing and retrieve the log and send it to you? Why can't I get to the log from Frontview?
Netgear, if you are listening, I want my support ticket escalated as soon as possible. I want this thing back online, I want the disk replaced under warranty. The ticket number is 19257235. This is, without exaggeration, the worst online customer support experience ever for me.
Potential new buyers, if you're reading this, think carefully about the situation when your hardware goes bad (because all hardware goes bad), and whether you can tolerate this sort of support when the most important files you have are unavailable.
In case there are others in the user community who would like to offer suggestions, here is the summary:
As above, my ReadyNAS Duo started emailing about SmartErrors, and a couple days later was completely unresponsive. With Netgear support I've been though restoring the OS and booting without volume scan. Nothing. The only way it shows any signs of life is to remove both drives. Then it shows up in Raidar, but still no Frontview. I can remove the drives, boot to Telnet mode, then plug the drives back in. Apparently this is the point where Netgear would like to open up my router and poke around in my NAS. I'm not sure this is possible on my Airport router, I don't see the usual list of ports to enable in the configuration utility. And like I said, I don't particularly want them poking around in it, if I can do the same and send the logs myself. I think all I really need is to find out which of the two drives is dead and replace it. Then the NAS should rebuild the RAID and be happy again. However I obviously don't want to risk losing the data on there.
Re: My first and last product from Netgear #19257235
sravet wrote:
The last comment from support on Sept 13 was "I will get back to you after I find out if it is OK to boot the NAS with only one drive." Get back to me? A support person who doesn't know whether or not I can boot Ready NAS with only one drive?
You should be able to boot it with one drive.
sravet wrote:
I'm pretty sure I can yank a drive out while the thing is writing files without losing anything -- it is a fault tolerant redundant storage device after all.
That would be a very, very bad idea if you did that with a working disk. When you reinserted a disk removed like that (do it while NAS is on to make sure it gets wiped) it would need to be wiped and synced to the other disk. This would put heavy stress on all disks in the array.
sravet wrote:
Why in the world does the CPU get wedged because of a disk error? Isn't that the whole point, to deal with disk errors gracefully?
Disks can and do fail in a variety of different ways.
sravet wrote:
Why do I have to have this excruciatingly slow conversation with a tech support person just to do basic troubleshooting? Shouldn't there be a FAQ that leads me through restoring firmware, booting without volume check, and other non destructive steps on my own, so I can report the status of those things in my first support contact?
There are various FAQs. Booting without a volume check isn't recommended unless support tells you try it. As each situation is different and mistakes can easily be made some things don't have a FAQ.
sravet wrote:
Why do I have to wait in the same slow email queue as people who wonder why their streaming service breaks up, or other non-critical problems? The thing is dead, and my wife runs a home business that relies on it.
If you need urgent support it's best to ring though if over 90 days since purchase and no ProSupport contract there would be a fee attached.
sravet wrote:
Why does a netgear technician have to telnet into my device and poke around, requiring me to open up my router to who knows what kind of trouble?
The NAS won't boot so that's the way they can troubleshoot the issue.
sravet wrote:
Why can't I telnet or ssh to the thing and retrieve the log and send it to you?
If the NAS won't boot normally, then you can't SSH in or access Frontview so you have no method of accessing the logs. Tech support mode is a low-level diagnostics mode designed for NetGear support to use not for an end-user.
sravet wrote:
Why can't I get to the log from Frontview?
If Frontview is working you could go to Status > Logs and click on Download all Logs and send the zip file. Most things support would need are in there but occasionally there might be something that's not in those logs that they need.
sravet wrote:
Netgear, if you are listening, I want my support ticket escalated as soon as possible. I want this thing back online, I want the disk replaced under warranty. The ticket number is 19257235. This is, without exaggeration, the worst online customer support experience ever for me.
I've added the case number to the thread title for you in case a NetGear support rep notices this thread.
Re: My first and last product from Netgear #19257235
This is almost resolved and I figured I had better come back and update the thread with the results.
The initial post has plenty about what went wrong with my box. You buy a RAID box because it helps protect your data, and because it makes your data available even when there is a problem. The DUO completely failed on the second count. What kind of RAID box fails to boot when a hard drive goes bad? It remains to be seen if it succeeds on the first count.
Netgear supports also gets a "poor" rating. Very slow turnaround to each response, steps that are trivially completed in a couple minutes but which still require a multi-day turnaround to get the next step, and lack of basic product knowledge ("let me check to see if it's OK to boot the device with one of the drives removed").
In the end it was my suggestion to boot with only drive one installed, then only drive two. That showed conclusively that drive one failed and drive two was fine, and has now qualified for replacement under warranty. This is after 2 months of back and forth and unavailable data. Why wasn't this the first suggestion, rather than opening up my router to the world so a netgear technician could poke around in it, or installing some kind of remote control software on my computer?
The good news is that there is an express replacement option where you get the replacement drive first along with a prepaid shipping label for the bad drive.
Netgear, you need to step up the game in both engineering and support. For two years now I've been happy with the performance and features of this box, but that has all changed now. As I wrote initially, if you are thinking of buying Netgear consider if you would be happy with this kind of design and support when it's your data on the line.
Re: My first and last product from Netgear #19257235
The main reason I started with and have stayed with Readynas is the support; not from Netgear, but from this forum. ALL the problems I have had have been sorted out on the forums. I also think that when you actually need support, then you will receive help in getting more rapid higher level support by members of the forum.
