netgear readynas 316no volume exists. Netgear recommends that you create volume before configuring

[Dan-Wabwile]

Hello ,

I am getting the error netgear readynas 316 no volume exists. Netgear recommends that you create volume before configuring other settings. 

I have a readyNAS 316 with 6 disks each 3TB and on RAID 5. Disk 4 degraded and i have to look for a new disk in a period of 2 weeks. On replacement, I switched off the NAS, removed the degraded disk and inserted the new 3TB disk.  After booting, the NAS was giving the above error. Suddently Disk 1 was showing missing. I rebooted the NAS but was still showing the above error. 

How do you go about it in order not to lose data?  Does it mean the new disk is faulty?

The device is still recognising 13.2 storage. 6 disks by 3tb  should be 18TB.

Can someone help me kindly

[schumaku]

Storage industry is using decimal, not binary TB,  3,000,000,000,000 bytes (decimal) so 6 x 2.7 TB (binary), grand total of 16.2 TB before the RAID overhead, correctly shown for your ST3000 HDD. In case you might have very old real 3 TB disks - check the Web UI mouse over ... it will show it accordingly. 

[StephenB]

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

The device is still recognising 13.2 storage. 6 disks by 3tb  should be 18TB.

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 The capacity rule for single redundancy XRAID is "sum the disks and subtract the largest" - in your case that is 15 TB (using 1000*1000*1000*1000 bytes per TB).  The remaining 3 TB is used for parity blocks, which allows any single disk to be reconstructed from all of the others.

15 TB is the same as ~ 13.62 TiB (1024*1024*1024*1024 bytes).  Which is what your screen shows.

As far as the missing disk 1 and 4 goes, it is difficult to tell what is happening from the screenshot.  The best strategy now is to power down the NAS and test the disks in a Windows PC using seatools.  Label the disks as you remove them from the NAS, so you can put them back in the correct slots.  Don't power up the NAS until all disks are back in place.

I can also take a look at the log zip if you like.  If you are interested in that, send me a private message (PM) that includes a download link for the log zip (saving the zip in dropbox, google drive, etc).  Make sure the link permissions are set so that anyone with the link can download.

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

How do you go about it in order not to lose data?  Does it mean the new disk is faulty?

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FWIW, I always test new disks in a PC before putting them into the NAS.  I do the full (long) non-destructive read test, and then follow that up with a full erase test.  I have had some new disks that pass one of these tests, but fail the other.

As far as replacement goes, I hot swap the disks (removing the old one and inserting the new one with the NAS running).

Still, your data is more vulnerable to loss during a disk replacement than at other times.  So I do recommend making sure your backup is up to date before manipulating disks.

[Sandshark]

It sounds likely that the stress of a re-sync caused drive 1 to fail during the sync of the new drive.  If it did, then you only have 4 drives of a 6-drive RAID5, and the volume cannot be assembled.  There are possible solutions (though most will result in some data loss), so follow the advice of @StephenB to determine exactly where you stand so a forward plan can be devised.

If you do have a current backup, then the easiest thing to do is just replace all the bad drives (which may be just drive 1 at this point), restore the data, and mush on.

If you filled your NAS with drives prior to putting it in use, what you are experiencing is all too common because all the drives are the same age and subject to failure in a similar timeframe.  That's why I always recommend users start with what they need now and expand later as needed.  That spreads out their ages as well as not all being of the same lot (in the event there was a lot issue).  The beauty of XRAID is that that's really easy.  BTW, I didn't start giving that advice until I came really close to that happening to me.  A second drive failed within two weeks of the first, but I was lucky enough that the sync was complete and I just had to replace the drive.  At the time, I was backing up to multiple USB devices (the ones I retired in favor of the NAS), so some share backups were not up to date and I would have been very unhappy if I lost the volume.  The experience also made me invest in a second NAS (an NV+), which became my primary and I relegated the older one (an Infrant NV) to backup duty.

[Dan-Wabwile]

@schumaku , this is well explained.

[Dan-Wabwile]

@StephenB Actually I have enslaved the new disk on the desktop but it was not able to be detected nor be read. I have connected externally on my laptop but still no detection. So i suspect the NAS could not rebuilt the data while on 4 disks. So my worry is if the data is lost. I shutdown the NAS since i never wanted any further damages. Am getting a new disk then share the feedback with you.

[StephenB]

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

Actually I have enslaved the new disk on the desktop but it was not able to be detected nor be read.

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FYI, Windows can't mount the disks due to the linux formatting, but the vendor tools (seatools in this case) can still detect them. Also, they should show up in the Windows Disk Manager.

So if you didn't check with those tools, it is worth another look.

If the new disk has failed out of the box, I suggest exchanging it for a Seagate Ironwolf instead of another surveillance-purposed drive.

[Dan-Wabwile]

Hello @StephenB 

I got a new disk, connected to 3.5 Disk reader and was able to read it on the laptop. The storage is 2.75. I have replaced the disk in slot 4 but still could not rebuilt. 

Disk 1 still appears missing.

Attached are the screenshots and logs.

How do i go about to for this disk 4 to be active

[StephenB]

You can't restore the volume (or sync disk 4) without disk 1. Your RAID redundancy only handles one failure, not two. I suggest you try testing disk 1 in a PC next.

Did the original disk 4 completely fail?  If not, do you still have it (intact)?

[Dan-Wabwile]

Hello @StephenB  and @schumaku 

I have tried to read the two degraded disk 1 and disk 4 and they are only showing 3.86GB.

[Sandshark]

A moderator need to release your screen shots.  I believe @StephenB has privileges to see them, but the rest of us do not.  If you add a description, those who can't see the graphics may be able to help before the graphics are released.  As it stands, I have no idea how you even tried to test the drives, so I'm guessing that you expected to be able to read data from them.  But when you test the drives in a PC, you will not be able to read their contents.  You can only verify the drive's functionality.

You absolutely need one more drive to be able to recover anything.  Hopefully, either drive 1 or the old drive 4 are functional enough to clone and use.

[StephenB]

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

Hello @StephenB  and @schumaku 

I have tried to read the two degraded disk 1 and disk 4 and they are only showing 3.86GB.

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Are you connecting them with a USB adapter/dock?  Or with SATA directly?

If is it an adapter/dock, how old is it?  

[Dan-Wabwile]

Hello @StephenB ,

I have been using an external 3.5'' External USB reader and also been connecting by enslaving it on desktop using SATA cable

[StephenB]

And have you tried Seatools?  Or are you just checking with the Windows Disk Manager?

Maybe also try testing one of the good disks for comparison???

[Dan-Wabwile]

Have been using seatools to resr the health but the disks read 3.86GB yet the disk is 3TB and the other reads 4.14GB. 

Have not been able to get the exact error that happened or triggered the fail.

Does getting 2 new disks and replacing trigger automatic rebuilding. 

If the new disk added is being detected as new volume and the existing 4 disks claiming inactive. How do i activate them

[StephenB]

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

Have been using seatools to resr the health but the disks read 3.86GB yet the disk is 3TB and the other reads 4.14GB. 

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But do they pass the long non-destructive test in Seatools?

And does one of the working disks also show this symptom?

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

If the new disk added is being detected as new volume and the existing 4 disks claiming inactive. How do i activate them

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Your only hope of getting the volume back (with your data) is to find a way to use one of the failed disks.  It cannot be rebuilt with two failed disks.

If one of the disks is working, then it might be possible to mount the array from ssh.  But if they have really failed, then your data is unfortunately gone.

[Sandshark]

If you were running up against the 2TB limit of older hardware, I'd expect them to show a size of around 750GB, so I don't think that's it.  But I also don't know what else would make them only show up as such small drives.

[StephenB]

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@Sandshark wrote:

If you were running up against the 2TB limit of older hardware, I'd expect them to show a size of around 750GB, so I don't think that's it.  But I also don't know what else would make them only show up as such small drives.

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I am wondering if the USB adapter doesn't support GPT.  That of course means it is very old.

The 4 GB size it is showing matches the size of the OS partition.  Not sure if that is happenstance or not.

I have already suggested trying a known working drive, to see if it also shows this same symptom.  If it does, then there is something wrong going on with the PC+usb adapter.  But @Dan-Wabwile never responded to that suggestion.

[Sandshark]

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@StephenB wrote:

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I am wondering if the USB adapter doesn't support GPT.  That of course means it is very old.

The 4 GB size it is showing matches the size of the OS partition.  Not sure if that is happenstance or not.

Unless the USB enclosure is one that has an internal RAID or JBOD concatenation feature (and thus is not one that should be used for this), the dock shouldn't care about MBR vs. GPT.  If it has such capability, I guess the non-native partitioning could also confuse it.  But @Dan-Wabwile said he also connected directly to the PC SATA with similar results, so that ought to eliminate the dock as a cause.

I'm actually wondering if he's looking at the right drive.  If it's completely dead and not showing in the disk manager at all, I guess he could be.  @Dan-Wabwile, does SeaTools display the correct drive type and serial number?

[StephenB]

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@Sandshark wrote:

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Unless the USB enclosure is one that has an internal RAID or JBOD concatenation feature (and thus is not one that should be used for this), the dock shouldn't care about MBR vs. GPT. 

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You'd think so, but I have run into some old usb/sata adapters that had a 2 TB limit.  It might not have been formatting, it might have been more about translating USB commands to SATA.

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@Sandshark wrote:
But @Dan-Wabwile said he also connected directly to the PC SATA with similar results, so that ought to eliminate the dock as a cause.

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Yes.  It is confusing, and I'd like to see the results for one of the good drives.

[Dan-Wabwile]

Hello,

I have tried to read disk 2 and it detects and shows raid aray damaged. Am not sure if i can recover data from only 1 disk

[Sandshark]

As previously stated, you must have at least 5 drives to recover a 6-drive RAID5.  So your only hope is if one of the failed drives is still healthy enough to clone, then you can use the clone in the recovery.  Even then , there is a good chance there will be errors on the clone from bad sectors on the failed drive, so some files will be lost or damaged.

[StephenB]

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

Am not sure if i can recover data from only 1 disk

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No idea why you aren't sure. We've addressed this over and over. XRAID/RAID-5 offers single redundancy.  The contents of any disk in the array can be reconstructed if (and only if) all the other disks in the array are ok.

Information so far suggests you have two failed disks.  But the specific failure is unusual, and rather odd to see it on two disks.

It might be possible to recover some data, with RAID recovery software, but it won't be possible to recover all of it.  The way to recover as much as possible is to get a USB enclosure that can hold all all your disks.  5-bay enclosures are a bit cheaper than 6 or more, and you can combine a 5 bay enclosure with the dock you already have.  But you will also need storage to hold the recovered data.

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@Dan-Wabwile wrote:

I have tried to read disk 2 and it detects and shows raid aray damaged. 

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Ok, so this proves that you can see the correct disk size in Windows with a working disk.

What does the diskinternals tool show if you use it to look at disk 1 and disk 4?