I have a ReadyNAS102 which wurs away just fine setup as RAID 1.
Last year I replaced 2 x 3TB Seagate drives due to one suspected failing. I now need to access the working drive to retrieve some data... At the time I purchased an "All In 1 HDD Docking" unit but have not used it until now.
When I plug my HDD in to the reader, nothing loads in Explorer (Using WIndows 10). I go to Disk Management and I can see the drive but there is no path assigned. When I right click, all boxes are greyed out other than "Delete Volume" and "Help".
Does anyone know what the issue is with this? I have tried it on a Mac also and it prompts me with something like "The device you have plugged in cannot be read by this computer".
Failing all of the above, I could perhaps somehow remove the 2x new drives currently in my RN102 and insert one of the old drives. Can someone please point me in the right directing showing how to do this? I am petrified that the RN102 will try to format the old drive when I turn it on.
Also, if I put the old drive in and can view files succesfully, when I return the new (current) drives back in to the RN102 (back in to RAID 1), will the RN102 try and format those drives?
Basically, I am a photographer and cannot afford to lose the data! I do not have another drive bit enough to make another back up...
There are a few things you can try but I'm interested to know how you got yourself into this situation:
The disk you want to read was presumably in the NAS when you had a drive failure, why did you remove the disk as opposed to just replacing the bad drive?
Does the disk contain the only copy of the data?
Do you know what firmware was on the 102 when this disk was removed? What firmware is on the unit now?
I would suggest making a clone of the disk before trying anything, particularly if it contains the only copy of the data.
Windows/Mac won't be able to read the disk.
You may be able to read the disk from a Linux system, and in this respect you could setup a bootable usb stick with arch Linux and then try to read the disk as a usb disk attached to your pc. I'm not sure if this will work.
You could return the disk to the 102, this would have to be done with power off and no other disk in the unit. The NAS should not format the disk, but I would be a bit concerned about the differences in firmware that may have happened as there have been some significant changes recently. I would definitely make sure you have a clone before you do this.
The disks I bought I found were not suitable for the NAS as it is spinning almost 24/7 so I swapped for a better model / smaller in size from 3TB to 2TB.
Yes the data is only stored on both drives. Although I saw one failed, It still works but the NAS reported issues. When I plug it in to the reader, they both show in Disk Management as healthy.
Unfortunately no idea about firmware as I keep my NAS up to date when prompted. Firmware is now the latest I think 6.5.2 (sorry not in front of it atm)
When I bought my NAS I thought that I could just fill the disk up, remove them and store them ready for access later. I have a high turn over of data (photography) and my drives in the NAS now are almost full. Bit confused as to how to move forward with this as I may have to change my strategy!
I never recommand the step you took, the only thing allowed when a drive fails is to replace by a disk with same or greater capacity NEVER with a smaller one!
When the disk looked like it was failing, I removed both 3TB drives and then inserted 2 brand new 2TB drives.
All of the data is now on both removed drives (removed over a year ago) and now when I plug either in to the HDD viewer, the drive appears in Disk Manager and both show as healthy but I cannot access the data.
When the disk looked like it was failing, I removed both 3TB drives and then inserted 2 brand new 2TB drives.
Then you should be able to power down the system, remove the 2TB drives (labeling by slot) and re-insert one of the 3 TB drives. Then power up.
The system will attempt to upgrade the firmware on the disks (which hopefully will succeed). You will then be able to off-load your data to external storage.
Once you've done that, you can power down again, reinsert the 2 TB drives in their original slots, and reboot. Then copy the files you off-loaded back onto the NAS.
When I bought my NAS I thought that I could just fill the disk up, remove them and store them ready for access later. I have a high turn over of data (photography) and my drives in the NAS now are almost full. Bit confused as to how to move forward with this as I may have to change my strategy!
That's not a good plan with a NAS, at least with the internal drives. Major updates of the OS made after you removed the drive could cause issues. If you want to do something similar, attach that USB reader into the NAS and use it to offload some of your data to drives swapped on it. A scheduled backup job will keep the USB drive updated so you don't have a long backup when the time comes to swap it out.
I would think that you could mount the the drive you are trying to recover data from in the USB dock attached to the NAS, but I'm not sure what the NAS will do with the OS partiton on it and only half of a RAID array. Perhaps somebody else knows if it will automatically mount the data partition on the USB, if it will need to be manually mounted, and the command to do so.
I would think that you could mount the the drive you are trying to recover data from in the USB dock attached to the NAS, but I'm not sure what the NAS will do with the OS partiton on it and only half of a RAID array. Perhaps somebody else knows if it will automatically mount the data partition on the USB, if it will need to be manually mounted, and the command to do so.
I think you'd have to mount it manually.
Since he has both the old drives, I think it is reasonable to power down, remove the current disks, install one of the two old drives, and then power up. Assuming it handles the firmware upgrade properly, the shares will then all be accessible and they can be copied off. If something goes wrong, he would still have the second drive.
Thanks for all of your replies. When I got my NAS I thought that I could simply full the HDD's up and then take them out ready to use again at a later date to simply view the data via use of the ALL IN 1 HDD Docking unit. Seems as though that was wrong but now I am left thinking what is the point of the NAS as once the drives are full and I remove them the data is non accessible without a lot of messing about?
At the moment all I see that the NAS is god for is the RAID setup and remote viewing etc. Futureproofing your data via a NAS is a non-starter? That must be why so many people say to make a backup... I always though that setting my NAS in RAID 1 was my backup as the data was mirrored on both drives?
Sorry for what seem to be a novice opinion, I dont mean to be so stupid! I genuinely thought I had this NAS stuff sussed!
I have an old laptop ill chuck Linux on. I have used Ubuntu before, would you recommend this? Also, once I have Linux running, is it as simle as plugging in and viewing the files or is there some other trickery involved?
but now I am left thinking what is the point of the NAS as once the drives are full and I remove them the data is non accessible without a lot of messing about?
The idea is that you expand your volume as your storage needs grow, keeping your old files on-line.
