I have an Ultra 4, which had until recently 3 x 2TB WD EARS in an X-Raid setup. I got a brand new 2TB EARX which i put in, and the has started the expansion. But it didn't expand the volume, only the raid setup. I rebooted, and then the has did start the volume expansion. But then, it crashes slowly. First, afp and plex stop working (processes still running, network ports are open, just everything times out and doesn't respond anymore). Second, front view gives me only frames without text or images. And lastly, ssh stops responding. When I was still logged in via ssh, i could not open or create a file anymore in certain ways (create would not work, cat and tail worked, but vi or pico just hanged when i tried to open something). I rebooted the nas via the double power button press, and things went back to normal for 5 minutes, then it started again... Strangely, i didn't notice anything in syslog or whatever. So I took out the new drive to see what it does. The nas boots, and except for the alerts that 1 drive is missing, everything works like a charm. I put the new drive in, and it start resyncing the array. After a while, when the sync is finished, he starts to crash again.
Now i presume there is something wrong with the drive, but how can i check that?
The EARX hard drives are not on our compatibility list, which is why you are experiencing issues. Also there is only one model of WDEARS drives that are compatible with the ReadyNAS. Only Model # WD20EARS-00S8B1, and on only Firmware version 80.00A80 is supported. If your WDEARS are not the model listed this could be a cause of the problem as well. Please review our compatibility list for compatible hard drives.
OK, thanks for your reply. Since i just noticed that my EARS are not the model you mention, none of my drives are supported. What is the best way to replace them? Can I mix different brands of hard drives, and thus replace the drives one by one?
OK thanks for the help! After a couple of rebuilds it seems to have stabilized now, and everything is working ok. I'll just keep everything nicely backed up, and replace the drives with supported ones, once the prices are a bit normal again. The panic on the market after the flooding in Thailand has has made everything much too expensive!
That is correct it does not need to be the same manufacturer or even drive size. Keeping a good backup is always a good idea, but especially where you have had issues already. You may have issue resyncing new drives because of the incompatible ones, however trying shouldn't hurt anything.
