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RN104 failed disk - how to activate replacement disk
I have an RN104 with 4x2TB drives in X-Raid configuration.
1 drive has been reported as failed, and device is reporting 'Degraded' (but still working).
I ordered identical replacement 2TB drive and installed it last night. I highlighted the new disk in the 'volumes' section and chose 'format'. not sure if this was necessary or not but it seemed to complete fairly quickly. The drive continues to show as dark gray, but 'X-Raid' is green over on the right and there seems to be no further action I can take. The array still shows 'degraded' on the left. Choosing 'settings' on the left (gear icon), and then clicking 'disks', shows THREE disks not four.
Is it magically rebuilding the array in the background or do I need to take some action to cause this to start? I have no indication anywhere that a rebuild is underway. If I click on the 'X-Raid' green icon on the right, it suggests that it will toggle from X-Raid to Flex-Raid, which does not sound right.
So what - if anything - do I need to do? If the answer is 'wait', then how do I know how long to wait - is there any progress I can view anywhere, in this UI? How long should it take to complete for a fairly full (3TB) array?
Re: RN104 failed disk - how to activate replacement disk
I'm reluctant to upgrade as I spent months finding a stable release, but I guess I could go with 6.2.5.
I don't have a backup as this device 'is' my backup; I can recopy all the files, if necessary, from the primary NAS (so yes, I guess that means I have a backup) - it's just in a remote location so will have to be moved.
Is there nothing I can do remotely to try to 'kick off' the resync? I'm 1,000 miles away from the NAS at the moment though I could talk someone through the process.
Re: RN104 failed disk - how to activate replacement disk
Have you tried a simple reboot, possibly more than one to see if this gets the resync going?
If it doesn't then you'll need to remove and reinsert the disk.
It is possibe to do this remotely but again you would need to put the unit into tech support mode and get someone from Netgear to fix it. It is simpler to just remove and reinsert the drive which hopefully will be all that is required.
Re: RN104 failed disk - how to activate replacement disk
I finally had someone on site today. I had them hot-remove the drive. While removed, I monitored the UI. Soon after the removal, the UI restarted/reconnected - and upon reconnect, I saw (on the 'volume') page, 'balancing in progress. 50% completed'. I waited maybe 60 seconds or more, no change. I had my guy insert the drive. No change for several minutes, but then I saw the 'progress' on the 'balancing' bar go from 50% to 51%. Now, an hour later or so, it's at 54% - so 'something' is happening.
I have a 'balance' job set for every Tuesday and Saturday at 10:30am. it normally takes~1hr to complete. It hasn't even started since the drive entered degraded mode, but for reasons I can't explain, log shows it started this morning (sat) at 10:30am ... this I cannot explain. Also, in the logs, I see entries from just now for the removal and re-add - "Disk: Disk Model:WDC WD20EFRX-68EUZN0 Serial:WD-WCC4M1AAXEFL has been added to Channel '2' of the head unit.". There was no similar corresponding entires in the log for when I did the first hot-add of the new drive last Thursday.
So I can't explain why the balance this morning kicked off but the balance last Tue, and last Sat, did not (while degraded). It's almost like it no longer saw itself as degraded today? I guess I'll let the balance complete, and then see if a rebuild of some sort is indicated.
To be clear - what exactly am I looking for - a 'rebuild' or a 'resync', or something else?
Re: RN104 failed disk - how to activate replacement disk
OK, I finally bit the bullet and did what previous poster suggested (thanks!) and upgraded to 6.2.5 firmware. As soon as I did that, I saw 'Volume is Degraded; Rebuilding in Progress ...'. So it looks like I'm on my way.
Reason I was SO HESITANT to upgrade is, I had an identical ReadyNAS 104 unit which became totally unstable a few months ago. After weeks and weeks of back and forth with support (installing various beta releases) I just bought a new one, and following advice on the forums I installed 6.2.3-T1721, which was quite solid. So I was not in the mood for another go around.
Anyway - it's predicting about 17 hours to go so I'll just wait it out!
Sounds like a few months ago you ran into an issue addressed by a stability enhancement in 6.2.5.
Hi there mdgm!
Oh no - tonight my RN104 went offline for the first time in months - two or three days after the upgrade to 6.2.5. Unbelievable! The symptoms are very similar - no GUI access, but - for a short while - I could ping it, and now I can't ping it. As you may recall, this device is in a remote location so I'm going to have to have someone pull the plug on it to restart. I guess I'll have to see if this is a one-off coincidence or not. Darn!
