This is very odd. I have submitted a case as my unit is under warrenty, but the response was basically "just don't do that".
Unit: RN314
Accessory: Seagate Hard Drive with USB3 Cable (Type A to Type B Micro)
My usualy routine for Weekly Backups is to connect the USB cable to the NAS first then to the Seagate, then connect the power to the Seagate, then press the backup button to launch the backup.
This time, havign the flu and not thinking clearly, I grabbed the wrong end of USB cable, the TypeB Micro that should be connected to the Seagate Drive. Just touching that to the USB Port, caused the NAS to immeadately tun off--as if the power cord was pulled. No, i was not pushing, wedging, or jamming it, i was adjusting the cable left and right slightly as to find the right place to push it in.
At the time the drive was not actively reading or writing, pressing power brought it back up with no errors or messages. I then used the correct end of the USB cable, touched it, ajusted to find the slot and push it in. Nothing odd happened. I pulled it out, use the other end again and just as I touched it to the port, the NAS lost power again.
This seems like a design flaw. Yes, I will make sure not to touch the wrong end of a cable to the front, but still it shoudl not power off the unit.
Can anyone confirm that this is an acutal feature--some kind of protection--or is it flaw and I should ask for a replacement drive.
Are you asking whether the usb disk may be faulty or the readynas?
Either way I don't think anyone is going to be able to answer your question definitively, I may be wrong of course. I'm certainly not going to test it.
It probably caused a short circuit on the motherboard and I guess there may be a mechanism to shut down in the event of unusual power surges on the board.
If if there has been any damage to the motherboard, remember these components are even sensitive to static electricity, then you may have difficulty getting a replacement nas now that you have told Netgear what you have done.
The USB ports should be protected against an accidental short - all that should happen is that a current overload detector will trigger to protect the system.
Though I have seen posts from folks who say they have seen BSOD on windows systems when they've accidently shorted a port, and a few folks have claimed motherboard damage.
In any event, I agree that it shouldn't cause the shutdown you saw, but it is not something I'm inclined to test on my own Nas.
My question is specificaly the NAS. The USB drive is not part of the equation as I conenct it to the cable last. So basically I have a USB3 cable, connect to nothing, I just touch the wrong end to the front USB panel and the NAS has an immeadiate power loss.
No, I would not want you to test it on your unit. I did finally get the tech on my ticket to say that he would the "guys in the lab" to test it out.
I know there are some folks on these forums that have an enormous amount of experience and even worked at Netgear. So I hopes one of them may have seen this before. And at a minimum get it documented somewhere so that if someone else experiences it a pattern can be seen.
I agree completely that any USB port should be protected against a short. As I mentioned in my reply to the other Moderator, the cable was not connect to anything at the time, so the short would have been across the face of the front USB port.
Technically there could have been static on the cable, but that would have affected it when pluged in correctly and it did not.
I'm in the Mac world, but remember the BSOD--breathing wrong could make Windows crash, but as many USB cables and fob drived that I have plugged in, never have i seend a short.
No, I would not want anyone to test this on thier live NAS, I was hoping to get a tech at Netgear to test it on a Lab machine. I think I got that communicated to the Tech assigned to my case.
I just used the example of static causing component damage to illustrate the sensitivity of components to current. I didn't mean to suggest there was static on your usb cable.
