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[vermillion]

Hello, I am using my DNS-323 as storage for my MP3 files to use with a SONOS music system.  I have set it up simply with RAID duplication in case one of the disks fails (don't remember the level off-hand).  I am having a problem whereby after a period of time (weeks to a month), the DNS-323 no longer responds on the network and I have to restart it.  Everything works fine after that.  I was thinking of updating the firmware but I have seen some posts here about upgrade issues and losing data.  Are firmware upgrading problems common for this device or very rare?  Should I wait until I definitely see some bug fixes listed that might apply to my problem to make the switch or is the latest version (1.09) recommended nonetheless?

I have a sort of back-up via an Archos device which I used to seed this device after my previous NAS went south, but I really don't want to go through that work again because the album art is stored differently.

[dosborne]

What firmware version are you on now? Generally, there are no issues in upgrading, but there are always a few exceptions.

[vermillion]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I have 1.06 installed.

[dosborne]

You can go through the change lists / release notes to determine if there is anything appropriate that applies to you that has been fixed / updated. Personally, I'd say go for it, but data that you can't afford to lose should always be backed up under any circumstances. If it is important data and you don't have a backup, just turning the system on is a risk, but a firmware update increases the potential for problems.

[IAmError]

I went from 1.06 to 1.09 without a problem.  No change is without risk, though, so backup anything that you don't want to lose.

[fordem]

How safe is crossing the street?  Or going to sleep at night?

I actually chose those examples deliberately - because of what they represent - the first being an action that you conciously choose to do, knowing the risks involved, and - by looking both ways before crossing, attempting to minimize the risk, before accepting it.

A firmware upgrade is like that - you know there is a risk involved, you can assess that risk by looking at the firmware change lists, possibly reduce the risk by making a backup, but sonner or later you'll need to deal with the upgrade.

The second example is distinctly different - most of us don't give a moment's thought to the risks involved in going to sleep at night, and in that same way, you are apparently ignoring the risk of not regularly backing up your data - RAID is not a form of backup, and whilst I'm about it, you really do need to know what RAID level you chose, one reduces the risk of data loss and the other doubles it.

Just as it's not unheard of for someone to die in their sleep (ever heard of SID - Sudden Infant Death - syndrome), you could have a disk fail or the DNS-323 itself, and then you'd have to go through all that work with the album art that you're trying to avoid, because you have no current backup.

So in the words of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry "do ya feel lucky?"

Firmware upgrades are quite safe, when done properly, but like crossing the street, accidents can happen.

[JavaLawyer]

To mitigate any risk, just make sure you follow a few simple precautions:

• Upload the firmware from a stable wired network connection
• Avoid running other applications that access the network or Internet during the upload
• Avoid running any CPU intensive processes on your client PC during the upload
• If you're uploading from a laptop, make sure the the battery is charged (I've seen a laptop battery die during a firmware upgrade and the result wasn't pretty)

[jamieburchell]

Slightly off-topic, but surely it's not beyond the wit of man to come up with a fail-safe firmware flash process.

For starters, sending the file through the web interface over HTTP means that during the "upload" process to the NAS - the firmware upgrade won't actually start until the file has been fully received. So actually, the laptop/computer dying shouldn't really cause an issue. Once the file has been recieved by the NAS, the laptop/computer isn't needed other than to view the status.

The issue comes during the flash process where a power failure could render the NAS useless. So why not adopt a similar method to a database transaction and either commit the changes on sucess or don't commit them at all? Or have 2 flash memory chips so that one can be used as a backup/the staging chip.

[fordem]

It's not - the technology has been around for years, maybe even decades.

Several PC system board manufacturers boast of "dualBIOS" boards, Gigabyte comes to mind, and other PC manufacturers use a non flashable "boot block" which contains enough code to recover from a failed flash.

I've also seen at least one "midrange" manufacturer who maintains dual copies of the OS, allowing the user to back out of a failed OS upgrade - and - I've even seen a user cripple one such midrange system, by rebooting it in mid upgrade.

Fail safe maybe, but definitely NOT fool proof - took me about eight hours to get it back up.