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Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

John_Salfer
Aspirant

Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

Hello all,

Upon restarting, the NAS is telling us to "Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2." It has 2 3TB WD Red drives in it in RAID1 (X-RAID), with a single volume and was hosting 3 iSCSI targets. If I go to Volumes, it shows the volume, with a red dot in the top left corner, and says Data and Free are both 0. Going to the iSCSI page says "No volume exists. It is recommended to create a volume before configuring others." However, all my iSCSI targets and LUNs still show up on that page, and my systems are reconnecting to it - just not finding any drives.

I've given it another reboot from the web page (which did reboot this time), but still get the same issues. Is it possible to get things back online without loosing all our files?
 
This looks to be the same problem as described in issue number 23904523. Unfortunately that discussion didn't provide a resolution.
 
Thanks in advance.
 John 
Message 1 of 21
John_Salfer
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2

Log files have been uploaded. Please let when we can expect a call back on this issue.

 

Thanks - John.

Message 2 of 21
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2

Do you have a backup?

Are there only iSCSI LUNs on this NAS or other data as well?

 

It appears that there is some filesystem corruption on your system. Even if the filesystem can be made to mount I'm not sure whether the data inside the LUNs would be recoverable.

Data recovery contracts can be purchased to look into problems like this, but inherently the data recovery may be unsuccessful.

 

We can certainly provide some advice on how best to configure things going forward.

Message 3 of 21
John_Salfer
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2

The important data can be recovered.

 

There are three iSCSI LUNs on the NAS server, plus the default shares. The shares are rarely used.

 

Is there a filesystem check available from the web interface or possibly via ssh?

 

It will be very disappointing if the volume is lost. Not because of some data loss, but because the redundant drives do no good if the unit itself damages the filesystem itself

 

It would be fine to have you review the configuration. Other than adding the iSCSI LUNS the configuration is pretty basic.

 

Thanks - John.

Message 4 of 21
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2

A filesystem check if needed would best be left to support.

From the logs I can see that the volume has got very full at times and while a lot has been deleted since the last warning there is no evidence of any volume balance having been run. It appears that the space on the volume is fully allocated which may explain why you are having issues.

I would wait for support to get back to you to advise on the next steps.

 

In future please note that volume maintenance can be scheduled to be run. Regular volume maintenace can help with avoiding running into problems later. Volume maintenance should be scheduled to be run at a time of day when the NAS is being used lightly. I would schedule a balance to be run every few weeks or so and if not using snapshots likewise for defrag. Scrubbing I would schedule to run no more often than monthly.

 

I would also recommend not filling the volume more than about 80%.


Your disks appear to be healthy.

 

What kind of LUNs did you create (thin/thick)?

Do you recall on which firmware you created these?

Message 5 of 21
ramelic
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

My ReadyNAS 104 that has begun to do the same thing.  I started receiving errors the other day and then it went "offline".  I replaced the drive that the logs were indicating was becoming faulty and that allowed me to get back in to the web interface to try and see what my options are.  I tried every recommendation that I found online but nothing seems to work.  I put in a brand new (no partitions or formatting) drive but the RAID array will not rebuild/resync.  

 

The last suggestion I tried was to update the firmware to 6.2.5 (which updated successfully).  I now have a couple more options (like being able to format the individual drives which I tried doing on the new blank one to be sure) but removing the drive and replacing it does not cause a resync/rebuild to happen.   

 

I can see the shares but I cannot access them and the only message displayed is to "remove the inactive volumes in order to use the disk". 

 

I have SSH enabled and the drive I used to replace the faulty one is the same make and model.  

 

Whats the purpose of having a RAID if a drive is replaced and it wont rebuild properly?!

 

PLEASE HELP!

 

 

Message 6 of 21
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

Updating the firmware when you have problems is unlikely to help unless you have a problem that you know a firmware update will resolve even if you've already run into it.

 

Yes RAID protects against a single disk failure, but that's not a replacement for backing up your data. There are things that can go wrong such as multiple disk failures, fire, flood, theft etc.

 

If you don't have a backup and need a data recovery attempt you should open a support case. Support can explain the costs involved. Please let us know your case number.

Message 7 of 21
jsalfer
Tutor

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

We worked with Netgear support and they were able to get the volumn back online. So far all is working well, our three iSCSI drives are back and filesystem checks ran successfully.

 

The file systems on these unit are journaled and being we had to power off the unit (it wouldn't do a normal shutdown) one of these files was corrupted. Our understanding is the support technician removed the corrupt journal and the filesystem was able to be mounted again.

 

They felt running the unit tight on space may have had something to do with it and suggested configuring Balance and Defrag to be run on a regular basis. We configured them for once a month. Under the System/Settings/Volume Schedule.

 

 

Message 8 of 21
Steerpike
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

 I have a ReadyNAS 204 with 3x2TB drives (recommended WD drives). It's been working fine since you guys sent it to me as a replacement several months ago, configure in XRAID. 

 

The device is used as a backup target. Today my backups failed, and It was because the RN204 drives were inaccessible. Looking at the Web GUI for the device, on the 'volumes' tab, I see all three drives in RED, and the message at the top of the screen says 'Please Remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3'.  Firmware is 6.3.3-T153.  Log page shows nothing unusual. 

 

I'd prefer not to lose the content as they are my local backups, but I do have offsite backups also. How can I recover the function of this device?  I really need to take a backup soon! 

 

Thanks

 

Message 9 of 21
StephenB
Guru

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491


@Steerpike wrote:

 

The device is used as a backup target. Today my backups failed, and It was because the RN204 drives were inaccessible. Looking at the Web GUI for the device, on the 'volumes' tab, I see all three drives in RED, and the message at the top of the screen says 'Please Remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3'.  Firmware is 6.3.3-T153.  Log page shows nothing unusual. 

 

 


You likely need to contact support - though they might be reticent to support an old beta firmware.

 

How full was the data volume?  Did you have snapshots enabled?

Message 10 of 21
Steerpike
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491


@StephenB wrote:
You likely need to contact support - though they might be reticent to support an old beta firmware

How full was the data volume?  Did you have snapshots enabled?


 

Snapshots were not enabled. The volume was just over 70% full (I just got an alert to that effect, last week, so somewhere between 70% and 80% - not over 80%). 

 

At the time I got the device (as mentioned, it was provided in exchange for an RN104 that was having endless issues), that firmware was recommended by folks on this forum, for reasons I don't recall now. 

 

Why does this device have such sensitivity to being full? I see the question about 'how full' all the time, and certainly my experience has been that these devices become unstable above 80%.  To my 'untrained eye', that seems odd; surely one can design a device to not fail just because free space gets low? Obviously I expect to have issues when I run out of space ... but not a device failure requiring reformatting. 

 

At this point, I'm thinking of abandoning this product line. I have three such devices, and all three are problematic ... just last month, my offsite backup device locked up and had to be reformatted.  I only use this device as a simple backup target (for Veeam), using SMB to make it visible to a windows host. It just receives one file once per day, taking about an hour, with one multi-hour full backup on the weekend. It couldn't be simpler. I was optimistic that this RN204 would be more reliable than the other two RN104s but now this has happened. 

 

 

Can I just format the drives and restart from scratch? Should I try physically removing the drives and re-inserting them? I need to get a backup today if possible, as this is my production system. 

Message 11 of 21
Steerpike
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

In desperation, I upgraded the firmware to 6.4.0, and then started a rebuild. 

 

I selected the first of the three red drives, and chose 'format'. Immediately, all three drives turned blue (didn't do anything to drives 2 and 3, they just magically turned blue). I then chose 'volume', and created a new volume. I'm now looking at the volumes tab, and see the message 'Resynching in progress. 2.5% complete. Remaining time 8:00 (xxx)'. The 'overview' tab now shows 3.63 TB free of 3.63 TB. 

 

I tried to re-create my original folder structure on the volume (a root folder called "Backups") and that failed. But I was able to create a folder called "Test". So this suggests my existing 'Backups' folder is there ... ? 

 

I have no idea what is happening at this point. I guess I'll just let the resynch complete (8 hrs ...) and see what I see then ... 

 

 

Message 12 of 21
Steerpike
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491


@Steerpike wrote:

In desperation, I upgraded the firmware to 6.4.0, and then started a rebuild. 

 

I selected the first of the three red drives, and chose 'format'. Immediately, all three drives turned blue (didn't do anything to drives 2 and 3, they just magically turned blue). I then chose 'volume', and created a new volume. I'm now looking at the volumes tab, and see the message 'Resynching in progress. 2.5% complete. Remaining time 8:00 (xxx)'. The 'overview' tab now shows 3.63 TB free of 3.63 TB. 

 

I tried to re-create my original folder structure on the volume (a root folder called "Backups") and that failed. But I was able to create a folder called "Test". So this suggests my existing 'Backups' folder is there ... ? 

 

I have no idea what is happening at this point. I guess I'll just let the resynch complete (8 hrs ...) and see what I see then ... 

 

 


I let the resync complete (8+ hrs) and the drive remained empty. I tried to create a folder 'Backups' but got an error 1013050001 pre_proc_add_share () failed with status -1

 

But I could create a folder 'Backup', and a folder 'Test', etc. So this strongly suggests to me that the original folder 'Backups' is still there, 'somehow, somewhere'.  I thought about wiping everything and starting again, but I could not see any obvious way to do this, so I ended up reconfiguring my Veeam backup job to write to the new 'Backup' folder rather than the old 'Backups' folder. 

 

Any thoughts, anyone, as to why I can't recreate my old folder structure, and how I could fully 'wipe' and start over with the three disks? 

Message 13 of 21
jsalfer
Tutor

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

Sounds like a 'Perform Factory Default' is in order. You can find this under the Settings/Update area.

Message 14 of 21
Raywilkinson
Aspirant

Problem with new ReadyNAS 204

I've had a 204 for about a week from new, bought discless, and I filled it with four 3TB WD Green drives and updated to the latest firmware (6.4.0). Two drives (1 and 2) are a few months old and two (3 and 4) were brand new; the used ones had their partitions deleted and all were formatted in the 204. I set up a RAID5 array across all drives and populated it with six shares, all accessed via a single user account. I back up my two home PCs and one work PC, all via FTP, a total of about 1TB of data out of an available 9TB nominal. Today I had a problem with the sync program at work not running, so I accessed the box via FTP, to find that all the shares were there but most were empty. Accessing the admin page just got stuck - it showed the initial screen after logging in and kept refreshing. When I got home I found the LCD panel showing DEGRADED, and accessing the 204 via the local network showed the capacity of the entire array to be zero, and all the drives shown in red. The log shows disc 4 and disc 2 failed within one second of each other. I restarted the box and nothing changed, so I've destroyed the RAID array and set it up again from scratch. I can't believe this is a double disc problem, as the chances are tiny. Fortunately, the data is still on the source computers, but I am concerned this has failed so drastically after so little time. The whole purpose of a backup drive, that I've invested hundreds of pounds in, is to provide security for my important data. If anyone can shed light on this I'd appreciate it, as if it happens again I will need to find another backup system.

Message 15 of 21
StephenB
Guru

Re: Problem with new ReadyNAS 204

Double disk failures perhaps happen more often than you think.  There are certainly posters here who have lost arrays due to double failures.  Even with RAID you do need some form of backup.

 

That said, I suggest you use your 90-day phone support, and open a case.  Netgear should be able to do a deeper dive into your logs, and may be able to sort out what happened.

 

 

Message 16 of 21
Raywilkinson
Aspirant

Re: Problem with new ReadyNAS 204

With the failure rates of modern discs, to have two genuine failures out of four discs one second apart is so unlikely the odds against it are astronomical. There's clearly a common cause, especially since both drives now appear to be working fine again. As this system IS my backup I am not going to back up my backup - this is just my insurance against something happening to the original data.

I've set up a new array now and I waited until it had finished syncing before re-creating the shares. Now I'm copying the data back again, and will watch it carefully. If the wheels fall off again I'll return the box as faulty and buy another brand, as a backup system I can't trust is no use to me.

Message 17 of 21
WazWaz
Aspirant

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

My procedure for fixing:

 

1. Remove both RAID1 drives.

2. Install drive 1 in up-to-date Linux system (with btrfs 4.0), login as root.

3. "cat /proc/mdstat". Observe device of main volume, /dev/mdXXX (eg. /dev/md127)

4. "btrfs check --repair /dev/mdXXX" (where XXX is according to previous step). May take an hour or more.

5. "mount /dev/mdXXX /mnt"

6. Deleted excess stuff from drive ("cd /mnt", "rm -rf JUNK").

7. "umount /mnt"

8. Reinstall drive 1 into NAS. Turn on. Should now show up as ok but "Degraded" (since only one drive).

9. Shutdown. Reinstall drive 2 into NAS. Turn on. Should now show "Resyncing".

10. Wait. Done!

 

For the Linux system, I used VirtualBox and an Ubuntu ISO (actually Lubuntu but then had to install btrfs and mdadm), and did the whole thing on Windows with the drive installed an external USB caddy (you'll need to turn on USB3 support in the virtual machine's settings).

 

Possibly you could do this by SSHing into the device, but the NAS I was working on was a 2-disk and refused to turn SSH on with no available volumes.

Message 18 of 21
sifugreg
Initiate

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

That seems to always be their default answer for most problems.  My stanc is that I have RAID 5's all over my network and NOT A ONE of them loses data and corrupts becasue it gets full.  That is bad design and a defective product.  This exact problem cause me to lose some fairly important data when I pulled my NAS box from the colocation and tried to troubleshoot it for really crappy performance making it unusable.  When it came back online all disks were red giving the same complaint.  Nothing would make it see the volumes.  What is the point of having a RAID at all if the data can vaporize because it gets full or fragmented.  Unbelievable.  I'll never purchase another one.

Message 19 of 21
jsalfer
Tutor

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

Have to agree with the previous post. There is no reason a filesystem should loose data if it goes over 80%. In our case with 9TB (four 3TB drives) you're talking about 1.8TB of unusable space. That's just not acceptible.

 

Our unit has failed twice. The first time we ended up purchasing their support and they were able to get the volume back. The second time it failed they were not able to. Fortunately we use the device for backup and not live/critical data.

 

There was an update that went through a while back and things have been solid since then so make sure you're running the latest release.

Message 20 of 21
StephenB
Guru

Re: Please remove inactive volumes in order to use the disk. Disk #1,2 - #25684491

No point in resurrecting 6-month old threads, so I am locking this one.

 

 

Message 21 of 21
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