Sorry if this is an easy question, I've had a hunt around on here but couldn't find an answer that matched my scenario and virtually all of the links from the FAQ page for the ReadyNAS duo are now dead links.
I'm running a ReadyNAS Duo v2 with a single 3TB disk installed. That disk has started to report smart errors, so I'd like to replace it. Obviously I need to ensure the data is "copied" to the new disk. What's the best way to do this?
Is it as simple as just installing the new drive to the 2nd bay and let it "sync", then pull the old drive? Will that achieve what I need or do I need to do something more?
Again apologies if this is an easy one!
Model: ReadyNASRND2000v2|ReadyNAS Duo v2 Chassis only
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Hello KalChoedan,
If you can still access the data, please do asap while still can. If you can no longer access it, adding another disk to the system will not help. You may need to avail a data recovery service if that is the case.
If you had 2 disks inserted with an XRAID configured on the NAS, you will still be able to get to the data if one fails as that is the whole purpose of mirror RAID.
Remember that storing important data to just one device is not a good idea.
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Hi JennC,
I can access the data fine, it's just that the drive is reporting errors and access has started to slow down, so I want to replace it before it fails. Obviously it would be better to run with two disks but this is not my use case.
My question is, is it possible to leverage the NAS in some way to facilitate copying the data from the existing disk to a new disk - specifically, I would like to know whether installing a second disc, allowing it to sync with the old disk, and then removing the old disk entirely will achieve this. If this is not the case then I will be stuck with backing up the data across my network and eventually restoring it to the new disk - something I would like to avoid if possible.
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Hello KalChoedan,
Adding another disk would sync the new disk with the existing one, provided that you have it configured as XRAID. However, you are currently getting smart errors from the first disk. So I strongly suggest to back up the data first so that in case you get trouble with getting the second disk sync with disk 1, you still have your data.
specifically, I would like to know whether installing a second disc, allowing it to sync with the old disk, and then removing the old disk entirely will achieve this. If this .
If the primary disk doesn't fail during the sync, then the process will work - but the disk volume status will become "degraded" when you remove disk 1. If the primary disk fails during the sync, then you lose the entire volume..
When you sync, every sector on disk 1 is mirrored to disk 2, whether it is used or not. If you do a backup, you are only copying sectors that are actually used. Also, if some file copies fail, you only lose those files, and not everything. So the backup method is quite a bit safer (though it takes longer). IMO if the data has value you should be keeping backups anyway.
One alternative - instead of installing the second disk, you could attempt to clone your old disk to the new one using a clone program that does sector-by-sector copy. You'd power down the NAS, remove disk 1, clone it to disk 2, and then power up with disk 2 installed. The advantage here is that if the clone fails, then no harm is done. Though if disk 1 totally dies during the cloning, you still will have at least some data loss.
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Now I'm completely confused. It seems like maybe it's not the disk but the NAS unit itself that's failing. I've started to get very frequent repeated "temperature is out of range" messages where the temperature sensor reports -1C (clearly not real) and the NAS keeps going offline - it's pingable, but doesn't otherwise respond. The only way I've been able to clear it is via a hard reset which I'm loathe to do, but the device comes back up for a few hours and then goes offline again.
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Hi KalChoedan,
For now, I would suggest that you copy the most important data out of the ReadyNAS to another location (PC, USB HDD) just in case that the chassis is really failing.
Re: Replacing a failing disk in a single-disk system
Hi KalChoedan,
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