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[WillieTell]

Hi JavaLawyer (assuming you'll be reading this) before you redirect me to the Volume-1 crash below please read the entire post, its more serious.

A month back I spoke to DLink who gave me a one time free phone service to assist me with the extremely slow read/write speeds 1.3 MB/s / 0.3 MB/s. The result of my conversation with the technician was to replace my NAS. I opted for the exchange method so that I could have my server back up and running ASAP.

The NAS came I plugged it in and everything is the same, nothing had changed. I responded May 4th to DLINK asking, "Should you require further assistance with your D-Link products, please reply to this message." and I have yet to receive a response.

Side story... I'm unimpressed with DLinks demands for the contents of the box when they shipped me a NAS and power cord ONLY! I'm now without the original box ethernet cable, CD, instructions etc that are part of purchase.

While waiting for a response I called Apple who were extremely helpful, and free. I spoke to a technical who ran through a few suggestions, such as...
> Changing the Network preferences (created a new location)
> Deleting a select p.list preferences
> Dumping “discoveryd”
> Creating/login as a new Admin User and try moving a 1GB file to the NAS

Nothing worked, same problem exists. He suggested I speak to a Dlink tech who understands these machines.

A day or two after receiving delivery I noticed my NAS was not loading on my computer. It was running but unable to mount. I hit the NEXT button on the unit to discover "Volume_1 has crash".

You can imagine my dismay, I'm disappointed of the service I've been provided and now my drives are unresponsive from a, so called, "refurbished" product.

I called D-Link support to find get to the bottom of this. I was told that my original "free" help had been completed and if I wanted to talk to a technician it would cost $60. Or I could come here for free assistance. I had done a lot of research online before I even contacted DLink in the first place. I found this forum and couldn't find anything that related to this concern. After my chat with Dlink Customer Service I was left angry and like a piece of trash floating by the side of the highway.

I started off with a speed issue and after D-Link's help I  gained a crashed NAS. All my work, photos, music, in a state of limbo.

So here I am going over the forum to firstly see if I can get my drives back up and operational. Noticed MrBlokes post and followed JavaLawyers directions of taking a drive out reboot,... etc... This post brought a huge smile to my face... its an easy fix! Unfortunately not for me. It said the same thing after every reboot.

So here I am.

My setup as follows.
DLink DNS-345 plugged into Netgear Router (R6300 v1) http://support.netgear.com/product/R6300v1
5 Sources of contact to the NAS, 3x Apple TVs and 2x iMac's running OS 10.10.3. All devices run on the 5G network.

Side note, I was producing speeds of 20+MB/s to the NAS. But more importantly this new refurbished product as crashed my drives.

Please help JavaLawyer. I'm heart broken.

[FurryNutz]

Link>Welcome!

• Link>What Firmware version is currently loaded?
• What region are you located?

Have you done any wired LAN testing with the DNS. In regards to speeds, wired LAN connections is best with the DNS. There are many variables in WiFi that can impact good performance. Also it's recommended to use a external Gb network switch in conjunction with the DNS to maximize wired LAN performance. There is some performance loss with routers and they can add some additional processing that may impact performance.

In regards to in box items, most devices now days may not come with extra items needed as generally most buys of these kinds of units have cables at the ready to connect them. We see this with other Mfr products like BluRay players and such. If you got a RMA unit from D-Link then it may have been not included due to you should or could have kept the contents of the original unit. CD is not needed as initial setup can be done thru the DNS web page UI.

JavaLawyer will be responding soon as I' have made him aware of this. He's a bit busy with his other work at this time. So please be patient. We'll help you out as best as we can.

While you wait, you might review the DGS-105 or 108 Gb swtiches for consideration.

[JavaLawyer]

Let's start with the crashed volume.  How many HDDs do you have in the DNS-345? How are the HDDs formatted (i.e. Standard Configuration, RAID-1, RAID-5, etc.)

As far as speed is concerned, I encountered two issues that resulted in extremely low throughput (measuring in the low MB/s down to kbps range:

• One particular PC on my network had a very low throughput and it turns out the network card on the client PC was to blame.  Switching to wireless (although a slower connection) ended up being MUCH faster than the wired connection.  Go figure.
• I have four ShareCenters (two DNS-345) and had a very low throughput (low MB/s range with all devices wired directly to a D-Link router.  Moving the ShareCenters to a dedicated switch off the router resulted in the throughput jumping to the 30-55 MB/s range on the two DNS-345.

[WillieTell]

Thank you both, FurryNutz and JavaLawyer, for your responses.

I'd like to try get my HDs back up and running before trouble shooting the speed issue, but in response to your first question FN, the DNS is LAN connected directly to the router. The two computers are in the next room, and I was getting decent speeds until about 2 months ago.

Firmware:  v1.03 came loaded with from D-Link..
Region: Canada

Box contents-  I guess I am a rarity being able to provide all the stuff I was asked to send back.

JavaLawyer, thanks for your time...

Error Message: Volume_1: Crashed  Used:0%

4x 1 TB Seagate Barracuda HDs  formatted for RAID 5
2 months ago I was producing solid speeds with the current configuration.

Thank you both.

Cheers

WT

[JavaLawyer]

I'm wondering if your RAID array was going bad and that was the cause of the speed slowdown.  RAID-5 on a good day will be slower than other HDD configurations.  That's a strong possibility and could be validated by formatting a single HDD in the unit and testing throughput.

Do you have a backup of your data?  RAID-5 is not considered a backup and only provides redundancy.
DNS-343/345 - RAID-5 is NOT a Backup

[WillieTell]

Silly me, I thought RAID 5  was good for back up. I was under the impression if a drive went bad I could simply replace it without data loss.

Some data is backed up some is not... work, photos taken over the course of the last 12 months.

Its a shame your speed analysis wasn't provided in my communication with a tech a month ago.  I may have been able to move the valuable data from the NAS

[JavaLawyer]

Here's something I put together describing the difference between backup and redundancy: DNS-345 - Data Backup Versus Redundancy

While it's true that if a HDD fails you can swap it out, there's still only one copy of your data in the array.  RAID-5 provides redundancy, which is often confused with a backup, but the two are very different.  If the array dies, so does the data.

If you have a spare HDD you can format, a speed test on that one drive will tell you if the issue is your network or the RAID-5 array.

[JavaLawyer]

There is Windows PC software that will enable you to mount the four HDDs in a PC and possibly access the data on the array (assuming it's still there):
DNS-345 - Data Recovery (Windows PCs).  Other users have used these products with mixed results. Also, finding a PC with 4 additional HDD slots is challenging for some users.

[WillieTell]

Thanks Java, I'll try track one done and report back.

Cheers

WT

[JavaLawyer]

Good luck