Hi! I've had my faithful ReadyNAS Duo with 1 TB drives in RaidX config for many years and it's worked like a charm. But this morning I got a message that one of the drives was showing increasing number of errors, and it was suggested that I should resync and prepare to get a replacement drive. So I did just that, started a resync around 14 hours ago and ordered a replacement drive (which I won't get until Monday).
The resync started out as it should, telling me it should take some 4 hours to complete, but that I would be able to use the NAS meanwhile. However, the resync has beeen going on for 14 hours now, and it is not possible to access the NAS in any way. I can hear that it is happily chewing along, but the indication in RAIDar has been unchanged "Resync 12% complete, Time to finish 4 hours 45 minutes" for at least 10 hours.
What should I do? Make a forced (Power Button) reboot? Leave it as is until I get the new drive? And when I get the new drive, should I just pull out the supposedly failing drive in the middle of it's churning, or should I turn off the NAS? Is it important which positions in the NAS the new and the old (functioning) drive have in order to get a rersync after mounting the new drive?
I'm sure somebody has had this problem before, please help!
Don't pull the drive out while the NAS is on and resyncing. One of your options would be to power down and try to boot the duo with the good disk in, then if you can access the data back it up before doing anything else.
I would initially wait a few more hours to see if any progress is being made.
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
I use this NAS to backup my other NAS (ReadyNAS Ultra), so you could say it's no diaster if I loose the contents (as long as my other NAS behaves). I don't know if it's a v1 or v2, it says RND2110 v2, FW V4.1.6. But according to the linke you provided, it's a v1 based on the outline of the rear. Does it matter?
The first email message I got was that Disk 1 had an increased reallocated sector count from 0 to 1, and a warninbg that thius may indicate that the drive will fail soon. "If the errors continue to increase, you should be prepared to replce the disk." About an hour later I received several messages saying that "Access to the disk on channel (??) is producing I/O errors. ALthough the array is still redundant, please replace the drive as soon as possible, as it is likely to fail soon."
A little while later I got a message saying "A SATA reset has been perfomred on one or more of your disks that may have affected the RAID parity integrity. It is recommended that you perform a RAID volume resync."
I felt quite safe by getting these seemingly hand-holding messages, but alas, the drive just forze after on hour or so of resyncing.
I will follow your suggestion to power down and pull out disk 1 (which is the most likely suspect based on the messages I got). Do I need to move disk 2 to slot # 1 after pulling the #1 disk?
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
lenscooter wrote:
I don't know if it's a v1 or v2, it says RND2110 v2, FW V4.1.6. But according to the linke you provided, it's a v1 based on the outline of the rear. Does it matter?
Running 4.1.6 means it is a v1 for sure. The link explains the mismatch on the back label. There are differences between the platforms, so it does matter when providing advice.
BTW 4.1.6 is very old firmware. After you fix your disk issues you should update it.
I will follow your suggestion to power down and pull out disk 1 (which is the most likely suspect based on the messages I got).
lenscooter wrote:
Do I need to move disk 2 to slot # 1 after pulling the #1 disk?
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
That reference to 4.1.6 is probably on a sticker on the rear. The firmware may have already been updated but it is a good idea to check. Latest is currently 4.1.13
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
Thanks for good advice. The immediate problem now is that the unit does not respond to the on/off button, regardless of the time I press it or the number of times I press it. The Duo has been chewing for about 30 hours now, and I cannot get it to stop.
So now my question is: is it better to unplug the power cord, or to hotswap the faulty disk while the NAs is stuck in this endless loop of disk activity?
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
Since this is purely a backup NAS, even if it fails totally you can do a factory reset, and bring it back to life and simply re-copy the data. So it might not matter which you try.
I'd be tempted to remove the faulty disk, and see if the NAS recovers.
If it does, then you could hot-insert the replacement. Otherwise pull the plug.
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
This is how it worked out:
Regardless of what I did (booting with one or the other or both drives) I could not get the Duo back on track. I decided to check both drives with WD Data Lifguard Diagnostic, and it turned out that one had partitions but didn't pass the diagnostic test (massive read errors and solid red SMART test) while the other drive was free of faults but completely blank (no partitions or file system).
My conclusion is that doing a resync (as I did because that was what my Duo told me to do) is probably not a good idea when there is one bad drive in the system. I feel truly disappointed with the ReadyNAS Duo, since the first time my redundant and hotswappable unit has a disk failure, I lost all my data. If one bad disk leads to the other disk being wiped clean, the system doesn't work as it should.
I now made a factory reset with the fault-free drive and am waiting for my newly ordered drive to arrive Monday before making a fresh backup of my other (Ultra) NAS.
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
...because the data was still on disk 2 as mdgm has explained, it is possible (probable) that if you had put a new disk in slot 1 and booted up with the original disk 2 in slot 2 , that the system would have done a resync and your data would have been ok, at least that what I would have suggested trying.
I agree that the duo, being a NAS, should not have failed in this way. Unfortunately the older sparc units do tend to sometimes fail to cope with single disk failures without creating a major diagnostic problem for the user.
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
Well, at least I've learnt a lot from the experience. For instance that the two disks in a mirrored RAID system are not identical. And that patience often pays off; I should have waited for the new disk and got a resync done. And finally that the Duo may not be good at holding the user's hand when it fails, but it is not as "non-redundant" as I thought 🙂
Luckily, I can easily live with the loss of data, since it was "only" a backup 😄
Re: ReadyNAS Duo freezes during resync - what to do?
vandermerwe wrote:
I agree that the duo, being a NAS, should not have failed in this way. Unfortunately the older sparc units do tend to sometimes fail to cope with single disk failures without creating a major diagnostic problem for the user.
Would the current ReadyNAS models (like 102 and 312) behave more "user-friendly" in case of a single disk failure? Maybe I should upgrade........
