ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
I installed a ReadyNAS 102 many years ago for a client who called me today saying they could not access the NAS share. They use it on Macs and PCs to store artwork and there is a shared folder called Artwork that all machines can see. They could login to the NAS through a browser and they say the could see the artwork folder in explorer but it just would not open. They tried powering off the NAS but all they get is a blinking blue light. While I was talking to them however the folder came back up and they could get access.
Just wondered what might have caused both the blinking blue light and for them not to have been able to access the main share folder.
Re: ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
Have you checked for drive errors? Those can slow things down.
Are scrubs and balances being performed on a regular basis? Those will help maintain the volume integrity as well as help identify any issues with the drives. The drive test can also be scheduled, On a 102, a scrub makes accessing the unit quite slow, so I recommend it being done over a weekend for a business. But the scheduler doesn't let you choose a day of the week unless you do it weekly (which is way more often than needed), so putting it on a calendar to manually initiate before leaving on a Friday every three months or so may be a better solution.
If scrubs are already scheduled, might it have been in the middle of one?
Re: ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
To be honest I really dont know. Its years since I had anything to do with it. I suspect no maintenance has been done ever but I think that might have been set up automatically. I did wonder if it was in the middle of something. They said it had been acting up all morning. Ive not heard back from them since they got back into it a couple of hours ago so maybe its sorted.
Re: ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
Unless they have data to which they don't want you to have access, I recommend you set them up with a "maintenance contract" where you check in on the unit periodically. A NAS is not a "set and forget" device, and a lot of end users are unwilling and/or ill prepared to do the proper monitoring, especially when they didn't even set it up themselves. Set up alert emails such that they go to an account where they can be forwarded to you and somebody in the organization where it's located.
Setting the unit up with ZeroTier will also allow you to access the unit remotely via SSH or the standard GUI instead of relying on ReadyCloud for remote access but not make them give you access to a company-wide VPN (if they have one).
There was a time when I had a couple such contracts myself, but I decided it was more work than I was willing to do at the level of compensation I was getting.
The drives may be what's getting old. Make sure you check SMART diagnostics, too. Trouble with drives can really bog down BTRFS.
Re: ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
I'm semi retired now so wont be setting up any maintenance contracts. Its lasted like it has with nobody messing with it for probably about eight years I think.
I remember they had massive problems with it many years ago with backups from the unit itself and access times to the files from the Macs. Various Netgear engineers got involved and some of the updates just made it worse. Since all that was sorted (work arounds mainly) its been fine but perhaps its time they just upgraded it to something better. Preferably something low maintenance.
Re: ReadyNAS 102 blinking blue light and trouble accessing share
I think the worry with the cloud is the humongous file sizes of some of the files with it being a design studio but I agree. Its so much better generally.
