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[Absu]

This issue stems from a larger problem I've been battling with for the last week or so, but I'll fight with that before I post.

I was transferring a bunch of data to the unit last night when the RAID failed. I shut down the unit and the "Manually Rebuild RAID" button was active. I started rebuilding and it said it would complete in 401 minutes (which is just under seven hours). I was going to bed in a few hours so the time didn't bother me. Both hard drive LEDs were flashing away as it was doing its thing.

A couple hours later I noticed they stopped. I checked the page (I didn't navigate away from it) and there was no change; the minutes hadn't decreased and there was no progress indicator of any kind (perhaps this can be included in a future firmware?). I decided to leave it anyway and check it in the morning; however, a little while later I noticed the square LED that outlines the power button had dimmed, and it only does that when there has been no activity for a while and goes to "sleep". The page still hadn't updated and at that point I figured something was wrong, so I went to the status page where it listed everything as normal except my drives. It said I had two of them, but the page ended there. I tried to go back to the tools page to redo the RAID, but the web GUI crashed.

I could still access the unit through Explorer, but any attempts to get back into the web GUI failed (the browser just sits there loading forever). After a few minutes I couldn't even access it through Explorer. I tried turning it off with the power button, but no response. So now I'm left with an inaccessible NAS that can't be turned off through normal means. My only options now are to pull the power plug or do a hard reset. My main concern is... will either action damage the unit itself? I'm not concerned about the data or even the drives; I just don't want the unit to be rendered useless.

Couple other pieces of information:

- The Easy Search Utility can see the unit just fine
- I'm running two 1.5TB Seagate drives (the firmware is stable)
- In the unit itself I am running the 1.06 firmware
- The IP didn't change (it's statically set)
- All other features of the unit are disabled (FTP, BitTorrent, iTunes, etc.)

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[fordem]

Just a comment - there are two pages that can show the "estimated rebuild time", one is generated when you click the manual rebuild button, and the other is the status page - these are both "static" html pages and will not display progress.

If you refresh the page at intervals, you will see the numbers change, usually downwards - although if the drives are used during the rebuild it is possible to see the time increase.

I can offer no input on the unit hanging or freezing - I have not had that happen during a rebuild, I am using relatively small drives - 250 GB - but over the last week, I have rebuilt my array as many as two and three times per day, whilst exploring the new features of the 1.06 firmware.

It musted be pointed out here that I have never needed to rebuild the unit due to a failure - only due to my simulations whilst testing.

I have seen the unit freeze in earlier simulations and unplugging it has always resloved the problem.

[STR3T]

QUOTE:
"I'm running two 1.5TB Seagate drives (the firmware is stable)"


Are you sure these drives are stable?  I don't have these drives myself, but aren't these hitting the headlines for freezing and instable firmware?

To determine whether your product is affected, please visit the Seagate Support web site at http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931.

[klein]

hey STR3T

thanks for the utility, how do you check the firmware of the drives when they are in the NAS already?  i don't want to take them out and hook up to a pc and all that stuff, do you know or anyone for that matter how to get the firmware of the drives in the NAS?

thanks in advance

[hilaireg]

Have a look at this post 

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3857.0

[klein]

so having that said, that's fine, if you hook it up in an external case and attach it to a windows computer,  will it detect it with the data and file system on it or will it need to be formatted for ntfs or fat/32 before it will recognize it??

[JRBTempe]

I'm wondering the same thing... I have two 1 TB Seagate drives which are on the hit list as well. I was able to find the firmware by taking the drive out of my DNS-323 and looking at the sticker on the drive itself... used a SATA dock to try to mount it under Windows XP (via Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro) but it didn't seem to show up. I was sort of afraid to tamper with it too much more for fear of losing the data on the drive, so I've been looking around online trying to see what other 323 owners are doing...

[klein]

so if you know the firmware on it why are you trying to hook it up to your comp, unless it is one of the list for upgrading but what's on the drive and what the software will detect should be the same ...

[JRBTempe]

I hooked it up to make sure the drive could be recognized in order to do the firmware update...

[Absu]

I have seen the unit freeze in earlier simulations and unplugging it has always resloved the problem.

Thank you for your response. I haven't had a chance to work on the unit in the last day or so, but I have tried accessing it through the web UI and it still hangs. I think I'll try unplugging it and hoping for the best. I'll post back and let you know how it goes.

QUOTE:
"I'm running two 1.5TB Seagate drives (the firmware is stable)"


Are you sure these drives are stable?  I don't have these drives myself, but aren't these hitting the headlines for freezing and instable firmware?

To determine whether your product is affected, please visit the Seagate Support web site at http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/news.jsp?DocId=207931.

Yes I am sure. When they were first released they were plagued with firmware issues, which is why I waited a few months before purchasing them. Also, through all the research I have done on the issue, my drive models/firmware are not affected. Furthermore I've been using the drives for several weeks without issue before this problem occurred with the NAS.

[Absu]

So I unplugged it and plugged it back in and everything came up normal.

I began the rebuild and kept hitting F5 to refresh the time remaining. Even though I wasn't using the drives at all, the time fluctuated quite a bit, but slowly went down as it did its thing. Both hard drive lights were blinking as they're supposed to.

I went away from the computer a while, came back and noticed the hard drive lights were no longer blinking, so I pressed F5 again and it said the rebuilding was underway and please wait for Completed. I ****ed my head to the side at the wording, but I figured it was just a bad translation and it was actually finished. I clicked on the status page and it froze up like before. That is, it displayed all the information like normal except it didn't display the information regarding the hard drives. It's as if the page ends just before the hard drive information. The only information associated with the hard drives that was displayed was how many there were, which is two and it displayed that correctly.

A few minutes later the drive on the left (facing the unit) started to blink red, which of course isn't a good sign, but I am not convinced yet the drive is bad because they're only a month old. I could no longer access the web GUI or access the unit through Explorer so I went to unplug it again. When I moved the unit to the side, I noticed the light that was previously blinking red was now a solid white. What does the white light mean, aside from death?

So I unplugged it again and left it over night to cool down (it felt rather warm to me). Today I powered it back up and both drives appear on the status page like normal, but the RAID is listed as degraded; all the data is still there, though. I went to the RAID section and it lists only one drive (the one that's in slot two). I assume it's supposed to do this? As in, it's listing the drive that it's going to use to rebuild the array? I'm just curious because I've only ever seen this page list one drive.

Anyway, this time around I am going to set the type and reformat and see if the whole thing happens again. Copying the data back is a pain, but I can just go to bed while it's doing it.