ReadyNAS Pro 6 crashed again

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tony359 wrote:

no, I mean from the techsupport feature on the NAS 🙂

 

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 None of the volumes are mounted in tech support mode (including the os partition), so you can manually assemble raid and run btrfs check.

Though as I posted earlier, any btrfs repair is dangerous, so you need to back up the data before you do it.  Also my view remains that you should proceed with a full reset anyway, as any btrfs repairs won't rule out an OS issue being the root cause of your crashes.

Note the btrfs errors you posted are duplicative - all the errors are in the same inode.

The original PSU fan is a 12V one.  I've honestly never checked what voltage is applied to it, but it's constant -- no variation in speed due to temperature.  But assuming it is running on 5V to keep it slower, another brand of fan rated the same at full voltage may run very differently at a lower voltage.

Stephen,

Yes I know, we've discussed that subject many times!

And you know my point of view as well! I just dislike the idea of having to reset the whole thing to fix a potential software issue, that's it.

Anyways, as this is not going to progress much further I suppose, I have hardware coming to transfer the file. Obviously now the NAS has stopped crashing. 

Just out of curiosity, how do I assemble the RAID manually in techsupport? Also, I assume I can SSH in techsupport mode?

Also (!) is there a way to take a backup of the OS partition so it can be restored if something goes wrong? 

Sandshark 

Maybe the original fan had a higher airflow at lower speed then. Or maybe it's baking the PSU as well. 

5V feels very low though. To make a 12V fan quieter, I'd expect it to be run around 8-9V. Anyways, no issues. I'll run it on 12V and the PSU will be fine. 

Thanks!

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tony359 wrote:

Just out of curiosity, how do I assemble the RAID manually in techsupport? Also, I assume I can SSH in techsupport mode?

 

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You connect using telnet in tech support mode - not ssh.  The username is root, the password is infr8ntdebug

Once in, you can enter 

rnutil chroot
btrfs device scan

The data volume won't be mounted (though the OS partition will be).  So you can try btrfs check on the data volume from there.

A different option is to enter

start_raids
btrfs device scan

That won't chroot - not sure if it mounts the OS partition or not.  Though if it does, you could umount it.

Thank you.

Further to that previous message where someone said they did btrfs check but then decided to replace the affected file, how do I find out if there is a specific file which is corrupted following the check?

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tony359 wrote:

Further to that previous message where someone said they did btrfs check but then decided to replace the affected file, how do I find out if there is a specific file which is corrupted following the check?

 

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You can use find /volume -inum xxxx, where  volume is the NAS volume name and xxxx is the inode you are trying to resolve.

I've stumbled into a box of 2TB HDD and I was able to make a temporary 11TB RAID6 with them. See attachment!

Testing now - as some drives are very tired - before transferring. 

Update for those who might be interested.

Having completed the backup, I logged into Techsupport. The btrfs errors were still there but find refused to accept the "inum" parameter. After much googling, I went nuclear and reset the whole thing. 

It's syncing now.

Two thoughts.

1. The BIOS keeps showing HDD0 as "not found" every now and then. The OS never fails to detect it though

2. It took 20 hours to transfer my files over which the NAS NEVER EVER failed for a second. In fact, it's been online since I started the backup, no issues. If it disappears from the network it happens when it's idle, not when it's being used.

One question:

The OS defaulted to X-RAID, RAID5. I'm ok with RAID5, I believe X-RAID is what I want, right?

In other words, what should I change now that I reset the whole thing?

StephenB can you remind me your recommended schedule for the drives - test, defrag ecc?

Is there a "recommended" steps somewhere to perform on a newly installed box?

Now please wish me luck because if this thing disappears again I promise I will make it disappear in a trash can 🙂

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tony359 wrote:

 

The OS defaulted to X-RAID, RAID5. I'm ok with RAID5, I believe X-RAID is what I want, right?

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Yes.

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tony359 wrote:

 

In other words, what should I change now that I reset the whole thing?

If you use snapshots, then I recommend using custom snapshots with limited retention (and not the "smart" snapshots).  The "smart" ones have unlimited retention for the monthly snapshots, which eventually will fill the volume.

Enable ssh of course.

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tony359 wrote:

 

StephenB can you remind me your recommended schedule for the drives - test, defrag ecc?

 

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I run one test a month, cycling through all four 3 times a year.  For example, my main NAS has

• Disk Test: 1 Jan., 1 May, 1 Sept.
• Balance: 1 Feb., 1 June, 1 Oct.
• Scrub: 1 March,  1 July, 1 Nov.
• Defrag: 1 April, 1 August, 1 Dec. 

Disk Test and Scrub are deliberately placed 2 months apart.  Since the Scrub accesses every sector on every disk, I feel it also acts as a good disk test.

Thank you Stephen.

I've always had snapshots enabled but I admit I never used them. I can only restore the full snapshot, not browse it to recover single items, correct?

I'd be tempted to disable them. Opinions?

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tony359 wrote:

I can only restore the full snapshot, not browse it to recover single items, correct?

 

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No, you can restore subfolders and individual files.

With windows, you right click on the folder or file, and you will see "restore previous versions".

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tony359 wrote:

 

I'd be tempted to disable them. Opinions?

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If you don't think you need them, then I'd suggest disable them.  I keep them enabled, because I have occasionally accidentally deleted a file in the share. 

They shouldn't be enabled in some cases - for instance, if you have a live database or download torrents in a share.  When files are repeatedly updated in place, the snapshots will create heavy fragmentation (because they operate at a block level). 

I didn't know - or I forgot - about that feature. And it's even in Windows?? Wow! Well, I'll do as you suggest.

I guess the snapshot can only be activated on the whole share, not on single folders?

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tony359 wrote:

I guess the snapshot can only be activated on the whole share, not on single folders?

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Correct.

Note that BTRFS is storing deltas, so the on-disk space usage depends on how much you change (and how you change it).  

The method is linked to BTRFS "copy on write".  When the file system rewrites a block in a file, the original block is kept.  The snapshot still uses the original blocks, the main share is using the updated one.  Note that this means the file in the main share is fragmented. 

However, many programs (for instance MS office) will just write out the entire file when you change it.  So in that scenario, all the original blocks end up in the snapshot, and the file in the main share is only the new ones.

Anyway, I suggest custom snapshots.  I limit them to 3 months retention, which keeps the total disk space used for snapshots pretty low.  So you could start there, and then adjust retention on the share to keep the snapshot use reasonable (IMO less than 10% of the volume).

If you want to see snapshot use per share, you do need to enable volume quota from the volume settings wheel.

I forgot to thank you 🙂

The NAS - finger crossed - is still online. But it's happened before so who knows! 🙂

I have a question about the snapshots: I don't understand the attached graphic. What does it mean when I enable specific hours for a snapshot? 

Does that mean the snapshot is only created during that time? So if I modify a file outside of that schedule the change won't end up in a shapshop?

Apologies for the silly question. I have checked on the manual but it's still not clear to me.

Thanks

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tony359 wrote:

 

Does that mean the snapshot is only created during that time? 

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Yes.

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tony359 wrote:

So if I modify a file outside of that schedule the change won't end up in a shapshop?

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No, not exactly.

The snapshot captures the entire state of the share when it is taken.  So files modified after a snapshot is taken will still show up in the next one.

But if you were to create a file and then accidentally delete it in between snapshots, then you wouldn't be able to get the original back - since the original file wouldn't have gotten into a snapshot yet.

If you set the schedule to take snapshots all the time (e.g., solid blue), then I suggest also using the option to only take snapshots if there have been changes in the share since the last one.  That will reduce a lot of clutter.  

Also, I don't set the "allow snapshot access" option, only the "allow access to windows previous versions".  The reason is that snapshots are read-only if you don't set "allow snapshot access", but Netgear sets them to read-write if you do check it.  Since IMO the purpose of the snapshots is to protect me from user error and perhaps malware, I don't want the snapshots to be writeable from Windows.

Thanks, I think I understand - but one thing 🙂

Say I set the snapshot ON at 2pm, the NAS will create a snapshop then. 

What happens if I set the snapshot all the time (without selecting to only take snapshot when changes are made)? Does the NAS create a snapshot and when done it creates another one and so on?

How long does it take for the NAS to create a snapshot?

I think daily snapshots would work for me. Overnight is probably a good option. Do I check one of those blocks at - say - 2am to make that happen?

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tony359 wrote:

 

What happens if I set the snapshot all the time (without selecting to only take snapshot when changes are made)? Does the NAS create a snapshot and when done it creates another one and so on?

 

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The custom snapshots are scheduled at most once an hour.  So you'd get one every hour.  

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tony359 wrote:

 

I think daily snapshots would work for me. Overnight is probably a good option. Do I check one of those blocks at - say - 2am to make that happen?

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Yes.

Thanks Sir as usual 🙂

Now finger crossed. 

The thing you need to know about snapshots is that they don't copy the file content, so they are very fast and efficient.  What they copy is essentially the directory entries and file allocations and they keep sectors of the drive that contain them from being re-allocated for the life of any snapshot using them (until those snapshots are deleted).  So a snapshot of a share that has not changed doesn't really take up space.  But it is one more snapshot added to the list when you go to restore.  On shares with a lot of "churn", more snapshots will take up space much more than those without.  Also, since defrag moves sectors around, it and snapshots together can also end up using more space, again especially on shares with a lot of "churn" (which are the ones that typically benefit the most from defrag).  The snapshots will retain the old file layout, so defrag won't free any space but will take up new space.

Thanks Sandshark 

I stumbled into some 4GB dimms and thinking of upgrading to 8GB. I know the Pro6 is fussy about that but these are 2RX8 modules and were mentioned on another thread as working fine. Attached.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/RNDP6000-100-CPU-RAM-upgrade-suggestions/m-p/2170574

Could anybody maybe confirm these would work on my Pro6?

Thanks!

They should work.

Thanks Sandshark 

The RAM works, the system sees 8GB in the BIOS and it's booting fine.

I've started the integrated memtest and having the monitor still connected I can see the output.

It is normal that it says "memory 2056G"? See attached. Wondering whether I should use the latest memtest on a USB stick!

Well after two passes I booted the NAS from the latest memtest and ran two more passes there. The latest version correctly reported 8GB of RAM.

All seems to be good. The NAS has been up for 11 days now and no issues so far. Still running with external PSU. Finger crossed. 

It's with great sorrow that I report that the NAS "crashed" again today. This time I could not ping it from the other network. LCD was unresponsive. When USB keyboard was plugged in, the keyboard was dead - no caps lock, num lock. 

I had to power cycle. 

Just the other day I finished transferring the bulk of the data and just yesterday I put away the HDDs I had on the floor with the temporary RAID. 

I hadn't installed anything on the NAS - I wanted to make sure it was stable first.

I'm not a log expert but not much I can see from them. It stopped around 11am this morning. 

I kind of suspected that to be honest. This is either

1. A HW fault with Motherboard or CPU. I still have the old CPU I could try - though CPU failures are rare. 

2. This is new RAM so not RAM. I tested it, it passed 4 full cycles. 

3. A software bug - I guess not many have the Pro6 still running

4. Could it be something with my data? I doubt it but I am thinking aloud. 

I know the next step is to replace the NAS. I have been keeping an eye for a replacement, it's just some money I am not prepared to spend at the moment. 

I also know this thread has been going on for months so I'm not sure what else you can recommend. 

Happy to share logs if helpful. 

#NeedaHug

Going back to the original CPU is worth a try.  While CPU failure is rare (especially when not catastrophic that prevents booting), but you are using a "unsupported" CPU.

There are, I believe, actually a lot of Pro6 units still in use since the conversion to OS6 is available.  I was running them as my backup before I switched to 12-bay rack-mount units.  But probably not many with your choice of CPU, but many of mine were running a faster processor -- up to an E7500.