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[adacom]

have 2 x DNS-320 - both have 2 x 2 terrabyte drives formatted as single drives - both have been working fine

No1 - main server - Volume 1 90% full - Volume 2 - 30% full - mainly photos so small files

No2 - intended to be a copy of No1 - that was this weekends project as well as updating No1 with files stored on a couple of PC's

No1 had worked perfectly for the 6 months i have had it - it had been populated over that time with files from HDD's sat in an old desktop running linux

so spent a few hours adding files to No1 to make it a master and then intended to copy everything to No2 - after copying a 100gig or so copy process stopped and NAS asked me to remove write protection - what write protection was my muttered question - i seem to be able to copy some files - small ones - but anything of any size is very slow to start and usually gives the protection error

having no idea what was wrong i decided to copy everything from NAS1 volume 1 to NAS2 volume 2 - my logic being that maybe the NAS1 drive was faulty - that went well and the drive copied over

BUT then problems - i started to add a few files to NAS2 and that also slowed down and gave the write protect error

my conclusions so far - maybe well off the mark is that it cannot be the NAS drives - to have 2 faulty is beyond any reasonable thing - the files they lock up on are random but they are all big[ish] - 1.5gig - so the size may be an issue but what it never has been before - they are sat on the network wired in a similar way - one is direct to the router port the other via a switch - the common thing is the router - is that failing ??

i can copy anything from either NAS to a laptop so that makes me think the router is not faulty

am stuck

both are DNS320 version B running the latest firmware

i have tried from a wired laptop and same laptop wireless - same results

any help or insight appreciated

[ivan]

1) Have you tried running them both connected to the switch?

2) Do they have a fixed IP address or is it set via DHCP?

3) Have you tried using the local backup built into the NAS?  (don't forget to test the IP address before starting)

The above are a start to help you try and find the problem.  Another thing, it is not uncommon for a batch of drives to be faulty.  Not too long ago we sent back a batch of 10 drives that didn't even pass the manufacturers disk test software - and these were supposed to be selected before dispatch.

[adacom]

thanks for the reply

1) Have you tried running them both connected to the switch?
no not yet i had wondered about that - at the moment an doing a copy from  NAS1 vol1 to NAS2 vol1 to see if it copies over - why am not sure i expect it to lock up sooner or later but its a progression - there has been no logic in when they locked up but i do wonder if its a network problem rather than a NAS or drive problem - i am confused however that when i do get lockups its only with large files - copy a few MP3's and the copy fine

2) Do they have a fixed IP address or is it set via DHCP?
yes both NAS's are on fixed ip address

3) Have you tried using the local backup built into the NAS?  (don't forget to test the IP address before starting)
not sure what that is - up to now have just copied and all has been good with both systems - will look and learn

its always possible one or more drive is faulty - the one that started to play up first i have has some little time - was originally in another server - but to have more than one fault - i doubt as they are not all the same and have been bought from different suppliers over time

[JavaLawyer]

This may be oversimplifying things, but have you tried rebooting the problematic DNS-320? A month or so ago one of my DNS-345s experienced similar issues -- i.e. my PC and primary DNS-345 didn't have write access to the problematic ShareCenter). Rebooting the DNS-345 fixed the issue.

[adacom]

no help is over simplistic - so thanks - i have certainly rebooted one of them - not sure about the other - also rebooted the pc - it seemed to help but the problem returned

at this moment i am doing a full backup from from no1 NAS to the other - drive 1 on NAS! which had given the error to drive 1 on NAS2 - so far its working - if i get a fully working drive i will format the other one - the one that gave the error and copy back - hopefully that will work

will not tell me why i got the error which i would like to know but at least it will all be working

[adacom]

for anybody reading this i have an observation and some questions

today i cleared one of the 2 terrabyte discs and started to copy over files all went well until i had about 130gig free space - at this point the copy process changed - the process slowed down - the start of a file copy was delayed and the copy speed dropped - copying continues until the free space fell to 120gig or there abouts and i got the write protect error

so the questions - WHY - what happens at 120gig free space - i have no recycle bin set up on the drive but is the drive reserving some space for it regardless or is it windows reporting the free space wrongly - is the drive in fact full - the sharecentre interface shows the drive as 92% full - but again thats in windows

the coincidence is that this has happened on 2 drives across 2 sharecentres so its fair to assume non of the drives are faulty and both NAS's are ok

OK to lose 120gig with todays drives is no big deal but i would like to know whats happening

[ivan]

I am not sure what the problem is either because we can't reproduce it here.

OK, we don't have the same setup as you.  For a start we don't run windows and all our NAS (DNS-320, DNS-323 and DNS-343) connect through gigabit switches.

I may be wrong but it appears that you are copying from one drive to the other via a computer and this might be the problem depending on just how the computer allocates space on the remote drive.

One thing you could try.  Instead of using SAMBA, use FTP which is what we use for moving large files, or try the NAS to NAS backup which circumvents the use of an intermediate computer.

I'm sorry I can't help much more.  If we could reproduce the problem then we could work out the answer but since we can't it is very much up in the air.

[adacom]

thanks for the reply - you are correct in your assumptions of the setup and how i am trying to copy - have been messing on and off all day and am at a point where i can reproduce the problem at will

get the free space on the drive to be 135ish gig and the copy process is slow to start - get much below 135gig and it gives the write protect error - i am assuming thats generic rather than specific but it matters not it happens

and yes its via a windows 8 pc - the router and switch is gigabit - will certainly try your suggestions as its just annoying me now - will also try via a linux OS - i would not be at all surprised if the problem is windows

happy to play and report - maybe it will help others

[adacom]

an update of sorts and questions

the problem seems to be 90% windows based - working with 2 terrabyte drives if i copy to the drive all goes well until the free space is about 135gig - 92% full or there abouts - at that point if i try to copy a file the access time to start the copy increases dramatically from instant to 10 or 20 seconds - maybe more - the copy then starts but instead of the copy process being a flow of data it is transferred in small parts - slightly less than 1meg at a time - when that piece has been transferred the copy process stops for a few seconds - its as though the copy is taking place though a cache or buffer - at something slightly lower than 135gig free space i get the write protect error

going from there and copying via FTP on windows improves things - the copy process is ok but it still copies in 1meg[ish] bits - but i do not get the write protect error - i have copied down to about 30gig free space and whilst very slow because of the buffering it worked and am sure it would have continued until the drive was full

the same slow copy is there if i use the internal backup but again i dont see the write protect error if the free space falls below 135gig

booting the PC with a linux distro also gives a system that will copy with low free space but again in 1meg chunks so is very slow

so as said there is a problem with windows 8.1 - not tried any other version but even with FTP and/or linux the copy speed with low disc space is not good

so i guess the question is - WHY? - i always ask with such things - what am i doing wrong - in this instance i cannot see anything

[ivan]

I think part of the answer to the slowness and small chunks is to do with how the operating system of the NAS interacts with Ext3 disk format.  I think that the mapping of files to sectors is usually done in contiguous sectors which is fine until the drive reaches a point where there are no more contiguous sectors and the OS has to start looking for places to put the data - it also has to make sure it knows where the sections of data are stored and in what order hence the pauses.

I say I think because I'm not sure and my guy that knows things like that is on holiday at the moment but from what I remember from years ago when we were deciding what format to use on the drives for our servers those types of things were considered (as an aside we are now considering changing to JFS format for the servers to improve rebuild speed but even that format has other problems).

[adacom]

that makes sense - i now have 3 drives all with the same software on them and they have all been copied to - had files deleted and other files copied so they will be fragmanted - on windows they could be defragmented - no idea if thats possible on a NAS - but i intend to clear one of them and do a disc to disc backup over night - in my mind that will lay down the software in order - defragmented - i may have my logic all wrong but nothing lost - will be interesting to see if that changes things on the last 8% of the drive

has been an interesting exercise and if it helps someone in the future then thats good

thanks for the input as i have stumbled on

[adacom]

to conclude this for anybody who takes the time to read the thread with similar problems

not sure what causes the problem - the reason for it though is [i believe] fragmentation of the drive

the 130 gig -[92%] free space when it happened to me is probably not relevant - thats just the point with how my drive was built with copied files that the fragmentation became too bad to copy anything else - i did repeat it on other drives but they were just copies of the first one

so - i formatted one drive and did a backup copy from one of the other drives leaving the 130gig free space - i then setup to continue to copy to the drive until it was full or gave an error

the drive is now full - 0 bytes free - i saw no errors is getting to that - the copy process slowed down as the free space became less but as stated no errors were generated

is it windows - maybe that has something to do with it - but the answer is there

hope some of that helps others

[albert]

If you have setup the volume to use recycle bin feature, you might want to check there for any deleted files/folders that are taking up the diskspace.

[RizarD]

Same problem here !

I have 2x

Rev. B1

Fw 1.0

2 Tb disk

Using Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7

On windows server 2008, using ftp, slows down but no errors , using smb, slows down and write protection errors

On windows 7 using smb, slows down, no write protection errors, same using ftp

I also have a Rev. A1 with Fw. 2.02 and 2Tb disk, no problems at all !

Maybe a Hardware rev and/or Fw problems ?

[FurryNutz]

Tried upgrading FW?

Same problem here !

I have 2x

Rev. B1

Fw 1.0

2 Tb disk

Using Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7

On windows server 2008, using ftp, slows down but no errors , using smb, slows down and write protection errors

On windows 7 using smb, slows down, no write protection errors, same using ftp

I also have a Rev. A1 with Fw. 2.02 and 2Tb disk, no problems at all !

Maybe a Hardware rev and/or Fw problems ?