ReadyNAS NVX Power failure/apparent death

[hypatia]

I have a 2010 bought ReadyNAS NVX which will no longer power up (not a flicker or glimmer of any life).  I have tried:

- changing cables

- changing power socket

- leaving cold for 24 hours and restarting

- tweaking the battery to reset it

After the above, as far as I can see the general experience is to replace the power supply.  However since a new power supply on Amazon or eBay is about  70 British pounds I would like to check out any other options or validating this is the issue.  Also I found instructions on the site for changing power supply on other models but not the NVX.

I do have at the moment a spare ATX 600W power supply - if I could connect this up it would let me at least prove its the power supply.  Wondering if this is supported or if it is likely to make things worse! http://www.readynas.com/download/archive/pdf/ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf

Alternatively, I do occasionally see second hand units - more money than a power supply but a full unit in case its actually the motherboard dead on mine.  I'm assuming any NVX case would do (eg that I could put my disks into a Pioneer edition case) but are they also cross compatible with the NV/NV+ range?

Finally, most of the data was backed up fortunately however my husband had just loaded on a bunch of files in the afternoon before the next backup ran.  Have readers had much success reading xraid-2 disks with native Linux systems or Linux Reader?

TIA

[StephenB]

I fixed your link (the pinout url pointed to this post, not the pdf).

The pinout diagram is NOT for the NVX - your NAS uses the standard pinout.

Likely your ATX supply won't fit, but if you have long enough cables (or extender cables) you can run the ATX externally.

This supply should work as a replacement: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151089  Though you might need some cable extenders/adapters (a short 24 pin extension and a sata->molex adapter are sometimes needed).

[hypatia]

Thanks for correcting link and for the info - I also managed to post it twice (apologies, memory fail the next day when I thought I hadn't posted!).

If the pin layout on the NVX is standard could I use my spare ATX PSU just to prove if the PSU is definitely the fault?  (its a Corsair CXM 600W  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ALYOTTI )  If I could just prove it is definitely the PSU then I'd pay out the money for  the correct replacement which fits the unit - just afraid they if i go straight out and buy one it will be wasted if the mobo is dead.  

I do also have a ReadyNAS RNDP600U Ultra 6 Plus - both this and the NVX are on the same version of the firmware.  If I shut that down and removed the drives, swapping in the NVX drives could I start it up, copy off any files missing from the previous backup, then swap back in the Ultra 6 drives and carry on as normal?    I have been thinking about upgrading the NVX anyway so if I could just extract those files then instead of buying parts I could just go ahead with the new NAS.  Or is this likely to be more troublesome than successful?

thanks

[StephenB]

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@hypatia wrote:

could I use my spare ATX PSU just to prove if the PSU is definitely the fault?  

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Yes, though its possible you'll need a 24 pin extender and/or a sata->molex adapter.

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@hypatia wrote:

 If I shut that down and removed the drives, swapping in the NVX drives could I start it up, copy off any files missing from the previous backup, then swap back in the Ultra 6 drives and carry on as normal?  

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That should also work.

[Sandshark]

The NVX power supply is identical to the NV/NV+ power supply.  It DOES NOT use the standard ATX pin-out.  I am holding one in my hand right now.

[Sandshark]

See also this https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-Hardware-Compatibility/Inexpensive-power-supply-replacemen...

[StephenB]

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@Sandshark wrote:

The NVX power supply is identical to the NV/NV+ power supply.  It DOES NOT use the standard ATX pin-out.  I am holding one in my hand right now.

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Teach me to believe the model information in the pinout spec...  

Sorry about the misinformation - I should have remembered the NVX used the old supply.  

[hypatia]

apologies -  managed to post my response to the other thread when it would have been better placed here, too many tabs open at once!

Many thanks to both of you for taking the time to post your info and suggestions.

I'm away from home working currently but will be able to act on suggestions next week when I'm back home.  

I'm thinking that:

- first effort would be to swap in NVX drives for those in my Ultra 6 (numbering them carefully!) to copy off the files not covered by the previous backup

- if this fails then I will look to try out the power supply options again as described above

If I am able to extract the remaining data in the first step then it may make more sense for me to bring forward my plan to upgrade the NVX to a newer model rather than repair it.  I do hate to let potentially useful hardware go to waste though.

[Sandshark]

Since the NVX is incapable of upgrading to OS6 and OS4.2.x is unlikely to have any more updates, that may be your best plan.  You should have no problem transferring the 4 NVX drives to a legacy 6-bay unit, just be sure they are running the same firmware version.  I upgraded from my NVX to a Pro6 by first swapping the drives, then adding two more.  Now that everything in use is OS6 compatible, though legacy, I'm moving them all over to that.

[hypatia]

Just an update on this

I temporarily swapped out the drives from my Ultra 6 for the drives from the NVX and as you both predicted this worked like a charm - I have now copied off those files which were loaded between backups 🙂

Additionally I have acquired an RN series (which I was planning to do as an upgrade anyway later in the year).  This is syncing its shiny new disk as I write and I will then recreate the groups/user accounts and restore all the data from the old NVX (can I actually load the config file from the NVX?  its not a big issue to recreate the small number of accounts but I wasn't clear from teh docs if restoring an NVX config to an OS6 box would work).

Now I have all the data safe, I will try out one of the low cost power supply solutions - if this works and the only fault was the power supply then I'll reset the box and pass it on to one of the kids to have as a backup device. If it doesn't I'll just reuse the disks somewhere else!

many thanks to both of you for your help and advice.

[StephenB]

You can't load the NVX config file into the OS6 system.  You will need to manually re-enter the information.

[hypatia]

Having tried to manually recreate the user accounts I've run into an issue which looks similar to experiences of other users.  First thing i did was update the firmware to the latest 6.4.2.  Next I began to create the users through the UI and found some oddities compared to raidiator experience.

- created users. could not see home folders with the admin account (via UI or if I connected using SMBS or AFP from client).

- found a range of similar sounding issues on the forums so have tried mapping from Mac and Windows to \\readynas\data\home, \\readynas\data\home\user, readynasIP\data etc. None show the user accounts.  

- tried same as individual user accounts - same results, could not connect or see home folders

- shelling onto the box, sure enough the folders have not been created although the documentation states the UI does this as part of the create as I would expect

- i can create a home directory for the user manually, setting the ownership to username:group

- home folder now shows up from the admin webview and functions 

- I can create a new user and its home directories from shell using useradd and it shows up as a user in ypasswd, the home folder shows from the UI but the UI does not recognise the user as a user account unless I add it through the UI

The most recent software docs are 6.0 and look significantly out of date in this area.

I'm wondering has something possibly gone wrong with the firmware upgrade (at this stage I could easily do a factory reset and start again)? Or judging by the number of similar sounding problems is there a general issue with user management in OS 6.x which I need to work around by creating the users in the UI and their home directories directly from command line?  

I've raised this as a new thread here as its now off topic for this thread and others may have the same issue:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS/OS-6-4-2-issues-with-user-creation/m-p/1068568#...

[Sandshark]

See my post in Idea Exchange stating that a user migration path from OS 4.x to 6.x is very much needed.  Comments and/or Kudos may help Netgear understand what's important (function over fashion).