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[timtheenchanter]

Can someone help me with my DNS-320?  Here is the scoop of what happened.

1.  The unit is bought two weeks ago.  Put in two brand new Seagate HD's configured in Raid 1.  In the first week, everything worked just fine.  The unit is behind a UPS (but it is not connected with 320's USB), and it is on 24/7.
2.  In the following week, out of nowhere the one of the HD degraded.  After pulling the degraded HD, and then reinserting it back in, the unit started to sync and it performed normally again.
3.  This week, the unit had to be rebooted everyday to perform normally.
4.  Today, on the web interface the when I selected the Disk Management icon, the wait cursor was spinning forever, so I rebooted the unit.
5.  Afterward, the L light was blinking but the R light was stationery.  The unit won't boot to the web interface.
6.  Did an HD pull on the right HD, and reinserted back.  The unit won't boot either after a restart.

I appreciate any help or suggestion

Also, here are a few questions that I have:

1.  Can the unit run with a single HD after a Raid 1 configuration?  Does it matter L or R?
2.  Can I get another DNS-320 and insert the HD's without losing any data?

Thanks.

[priitv8]

1) Yes. Not sure about L/R interchangeability
2) Yes. As long as it is the same device (320 in your case).

PS I had experience with one of the drives constantly degrading in my DNS-325. It was always the right-side drive. Did you hear any strange noises from your NAS prior to that?
It turned out to be insufficient drive fixation stability in my case, allowing the drives to vibrate inside the case. So I had to bend the metallic springs in the front of drive bay to make it press the drive tightly against the aluminium rail. Has been stable ever since.

[timtheenchanter]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Here is what I find:

1. L in, R in -> L blinks, R stationery -> DNS won't boot.
2. L out, R in -> L off, R blinks -> DNS boot degraded.
3. L in, R out -> L blinks, R off -> DNS won't boot.

4. L out, R in L -> L blinks, R off -> DNS boot degraded.
5. L in R, R out -> L off, R blinks -> DNS won't boot.
6. R in L, and L in R -> L stationery, R blinks -> DNS won't boot.

It seems that the L HD, wherever it is in the DNS, won't let the system boot -- no matter the location or the combination.

The question is ... what is going on with L HD?  How do I reformat L HD so that when it is inserted back to DNS-320 it will be prompted for initialization and syncing?

Can the L HD be defective?  It is a breand new Seagate.

[ivan]

Can a brand new drive be defective - YES.  We have seen several and now give all new drives a thorough testing using the manufacturers disk test tools before we use them.

Here again is the method we use (I've posted this several times here).

1) Get a USB/SATA caddy or adapter and attach the drive in question to it.
2) Download the Seagate disk test tools from their site.
3) Install the disk test tools onto your computer.
4) Plug in the USB caddy or adapter and check the computer sees it - it won't see anything on the drive if you are using windows.
5) Run the disk tests against the drive and note the results - if bad return for refund or new drive, if good we need to consider your DNS-320.

[timtheenchanter]

Thank you for your info.  I will try that.

In the mean time, as soon as I was done swapping the two disks as described above the unit now did not even recognize the good HD.  The DNS-320 boots up, but it says no disk.  Ouch.

[priitv8]

If one of the Seagates checks out as bad, you've probably nailed it.
If both check out as good - you've got a defective NAS.

[JavaLawyer]

Can a brand new drive be defective - YES.  We have seen several and now give all new drives a thorough testing using the manufacturers disk test tools before we use them.

Here again is the method we use (I've posted this several times here).

1) Get a USB/SATA caddy or adapter and attach the drive in question to it.
2) Download the Seagate disk test tools from their site.
3) Install the disk test tools onto your computer.
4) Plug in the USB caddy or adapter and check the computer sees it - it won't see anything on the drive if you are using windows.
5) Run the disk tests against the drive and note the results - if bad return for refund or new drive, if good we need to consider your DNS-320.

ivan, would you mind if I post your troubleshooting procedure on our FAQ board?
Thx 

[ivan]

No problem with that JavaLawyer, it might save me having to type it in every time disk problems pop up here.

[JavaLawyer]

Yes, I keep a notepad file open with commonly posted links.  Saves lots of unnecessary typing.

[JavaLawyer]

No problem with that JavaLawyer, it might save me having to type it in every time disk problems pop up here.

Here's my first cut. If you have any changes or additional bullet notes to add, please let me know.
ShareCenter - Troubleshooting a Bad HDD

[ivan]

The only other thing that might appear in the notes section is something to effect that a usb/sata caddy or adapter is used because fitting the disk in an SATA equipped computer will most probably corrupt the data if a windows OS is on the computer - that is before any linux disk reading software becomes active, also a damaged disk may prevent the computer booting at all and if it doesn't it may cause problems by disk assignment.

[JavaLawyer]

The only other thing that might appear in the notes section is something to effect that a usb/sata caddy or adapter is used because fitting the disk in an SATA equipped computer will most probably corrupt the data if a windows OS is on the computer - that is before any linux disk reading software becomes active, also a damaged disk may prevent the computer booting at all and if it doesn't it may cause problems by disk assignment.

Thanks. . . I'll make the change.

[timtheenchanter]

So, I would like to share what I did and what happened.  Hopefully this information is beneficial for all.

1.  As it turned out, the DNS-320 is the bad unit.  I ordered another new HD, and the old 320 is still not working.
2.  In my case, the L slot is bad.  If a new/good HD is inserted, the L light is blinking constantly along with the power light.  The HD sounded like it is trying to start but it would not.  This will go on forever.
3.  When you unplug the L slot, the R slot is working fine and the system will say that the RAID 1 is degraded.

I went and replaced the DNS-320 with a new one.  Here is what happened.

1.  I plug in the new HD on the L side and the old HD from the old 320 on the R side.  The system said that the HD setup is incomplete.
2.  I unplugged the L side, leaving the R side plugged in, the system can detect the degraded RAID 1.  It even detected one of the share, and I had to set up the rest as it seems.
3.  I plug back the L side, and went to the HD setup.  I thought that the system will format the new HD and automatically restore the RAID 1.  That did not happen.  The system formatted BOTH drives, and now I get a brand spanking new RAID 1 with no data.

So, what is the correct procedure to switch to a new DNS-320?  I fear that I will have to do this again for the rest of my DNS-320's that I have in various places.

[ivan]

With all the chopping and changing of drives you did I would expect the drives to be in some inconsistent state which precludes a full RAID 1 rebuild.  When this happens the Raid firmware has just enough intelligence to do a complete reformat to remove the inconsistencies expecting a full restore from backup.

I have had this happen on one of our servers but there we did get a message saying it was going to do so and it wouldn't let us use the questionable drive until it was reformatted.  The cost of the server compared to the DNS-320 should explain the reason we got the message and you didn't.