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.
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.
The plan is still to try openmediavault but next week as I need the NAS this WE. It's now back to disappearing multiple times a day - sometimes fully frozen, no caps-lock activity when USB keyboard is plugged in - sometimes it's accessible on the second eth port and I can revive it by disabling and enabling the main port.
I've now fully transitioned to OMV - I chose to wipe the RAID and not to re-use it, which was a possibility I understand. BTRFS is not fully and directly supported by OMV via GUI so I opted for RAID5 and XFS.
As recommended, I am not using the internal USB device for the OS as they might fail easily given that the OS is writing and reading much more than just "booting the NAS". There is a plugin to set the OS for USB so most of the writing is reduced to larger chunks and I believe a Ramdrive is being used as well.
I've selected a fast USB stick with metal case and low profile so it's plugged at the back and doesn't stick out too much - to avoid damage.
I am still running the external ATX PSU, I will reinstall the original (fixed) PSU in a month or so, if all goes well.
So far so good - but OS6 also worked for 2 months so time will tell.
OMV is VERY basic. The interface is nowhere near what OS6 offers. And some features are not available - or only available via plugins and/or CLI. It's more flexible as you can basically install whatever you want on it but you need to know what you're doing 🙂
BTRFS for example is supported but only via CLI. The UI is functional but crude.
With OMV, the VGA output works, so I can take control with monitor and keyboard if required. The Debian kernel is the latest available and I see OMV updates being frequently available.
One thing I had to implement myself is fan control: lm-sensors worked though. It's not as nice as OS6 but does the trick.
Now finger crossed. I'll update in some time hopefully with good news.
I was planning to make a guide, I should have taken some notes!
The install was flawless - I had issued but turned out my brand new USB stick I purchased was fake and faulty! 🙂
You need VGA output. Once you get in the BIOS you change the BOOT from the internal USB to the USB stick which you created following OMV's instructions.
Then it's just a matter of following the instruction and the box will reboot with an IP address. At that point you can log on and start customising things.
If you use a USB stick as a boot device, you should install the openmediavault-flashmemory plugin - which will reduce the writing on the drive and use some RAM as well maybe?
Then it's all via GUI. As I said, OMV is pretty basic. But works. Also, do get a FAST usb stick and do expect the system to be very sluggish at the beginning when all processes and updates are running. Once it's settled, it's perfectly fine. This is because you're using a USB drive as OS drive. Unfortunately OMV does not support OS on the RAID as OS6 does.
Fans are not controlled by OMV so I installed lm-sensors and configured them myself. I'll see if I can find the guide I followed but it's standard Linux stuff.
Oh, the display also won't work but I managed to send it some custom text and I believe someone's done some work to make it work. I'm sure something will come up. It's definitely accessible from Linux.
As I haven't touched the internal USB, I could return to OS6 any time - losing the data of course.
I see if I can come up with a better guide at some point, so far this is my experience. The box has been running perfectly fine and Debian updates (and also OMV) are coming regularly via GUI.
Another update, it's now 2 months and I haven't had the slightest issue with OMV.
I did try avoiding updates - which inevitably restart the software or the whole NAS - but I've then discovered that Debian will send security updates which are done regardless of me going to the UPDATE section of OMV. So at least once I found the "uptime" timer had reset because the NAS had been forcibly updated and the update required a reboot.
The thing is that: it works. No issues at all. After about a month I've also gone back to the original PSU, recapped and with a powerful fan this time. The PSU indeed is blowing quite some heat so I must have cooked those capacitors with the very slow fan.
Also, I have swapped the airflow direction of the fan. I do feel the factory one cannot be right. The PSU has a dedicated air vent at the BOTTOM. Air there is cool as it's under the unit. Hot air go up. So I feel that the PSU should get fresh air from there and blow OUT along with the larger system fan above.
Having the PSU to suck air at the back and blow it under the NAS is nonsensical to me.
1. The fan will suck the hot "system" air if the NAS is close-ish to a surface
2. The hot air expelled at the bottom of the case will rise and some of it will be sucked back in by the PSU fan. I feel that swapping direction makes totally sense. Feel free to disagree with me!
Anyways, I'm convinced that OS6 has a bug that applies to my system - maybe because of the amount of data, the disks type etc. Who knows. All I know is that (finger crossed) OMV works.
I think this could be my final update on this subject.
It's been 4+ months of use and I had ZERO issues with OMV and my ReadyNAS. The nas is on 24/7, the share is always accessible, no issues to report.
At some point I was unable to update, a file had been left locked apparently - I was given some advice on the OMV forum , I deleted a file and it worked again. A little software bug 🙂
