Broken Nas325 V2

iTek

Hi

I don't know what happens to my nas but I cant access it any more. I can only loggin to the playzone with default admin password but I cant do much there. Shall I try to reset it and see if I can access the admin gui? Shall I remove the disks first if so? If its broken can I bay a new nas and access the old disk if I put them in the new one? I am a little( a lot) worried abut the data on the disks. It is 2 mirrored disk and I have a usb backup disk to. I tried to access the usb disk from a pc but have not manage to get to it yet, takes very long time so maybe it is broken. I can see some files but have not manage to copy the yet.

Still hopeful.

Mijzelf

Reset won't hurt, and it's not supposed to touch the disks, but it won't hurt either to remove the disks before reset.

[quote]I tried to access the usb disk from a pc but have not manage to get to it yet, takes very long time so maybe it is broken.[/quote]

Have you tried to access the NAS without the USB disk connected?

iTek

[quote]Have you tried to access the NAS without the USB disk connected?[/quote]

Thanks for your answer.

Yes, I disconnected it but still the same. But there was one difference thou, the nas did not shut down using the power button when the usb drive was connected.

Mijzelf

Oh? In that case I'd suspect te powersupply. If it can't provide enough juice you can get strange effects. Can you still not login in the webinterface when you remove the harddisks?

iTek

Still the same with the disk disconnected. The usb disk has separate power.

Still have the same when I removed the internal disks. But trying with a new power supply could still be a good thing to do I guess.

iTek

Yesterday I did the 2 second reset after I pulled out the two internal disks (raid1). Then I could login to the admin gui with the default password. I then restored an backup of the config and every thing sill worked and my old config was back. So I put back one of the disks and vola! I could access the files as before. I am happy!

So the question now is what happens and what to do? Of course I shall buy a new usb backup disk and backup everything before I do anything else. Shall I then put back the other raid 1 disk and will it build up the raid1 again? Nothing has change on the disks. Could the usb disk cause all this or have there been something else/more. I had a power outages a week ago, it could have happened then. Shall I continue with this rather old nas or shall I buy a new? The disks starting to get full so I guess I answers that one all ready even if I could replace them with bigger ones. What nas shall I go for?

I want to thank every one on this community, It has been very helpful.

And an especially Mijzelf

Mijzelf

When a factory reset solves the problem, the problem was that the config was corrupted. The config is stored on an internal flash partition, containing several config files in different formats, and a factory reset basically puts a new filesystem on that partition.

I don't know how the config was corrupted. A power outage could do it, but I'd expect it to only be a problem when you was writing storing a config while the power went out. But I can be wrong. Theoretically it could be caused by worn-out flash. But if you search the forum you'll find more than once that the samba password got corrupted, while the shell password was still working. And a factory reset always solved that.

[quote]Shall I then put back the other raid 1 disk and will it build up the raid1 again? Nothing has change on the disks.[/quote]

When you have booted the box with only a single disk, the array will have to resync. Because 'nothing has changed on the disks' is unfortunately not true. The firmware has written some stuff. Resyncing is a more or less dangerous operation, as the whole disk will be read, and if there happens to be an unreadable sector, the disk will be dropped from the array, leaving you with a 0 disk raid1 system. That can be solved, but if you have the choice, make a backup before you resync the array.

[quote]Shall I continue with this rather old nas or shall I buy a new?[/quote]

Depends. You are aware that any Linux system can read your disks, even if the NAS dies? (As long as the disks don't die together, of course). Your NAS is still running, and a new one might not survive the 3 months burn-in.

When you want a new NAS, I'd stay away from ZyXEL. They seem to have abandoned the NAS world. The current lineup is old, and hardly maintained.

iTek

Its me again.

I decided to buy two (WD red 4Tb)new disks for the nas and continue to use it. I experienced the same issue as in:

https://community.zyxel.com/en/discussion/9690/upgrade-discs-in-nsa325-v2

So I decided to start over with both new disks. I deleted the volume and create a new raid1 volume from the beginning. I still have the two original disks with the data and a new usb backup after all so the data is safe. After the raid1 was created it started to rebuild the raid as it did when I had one original raid disk and one new, should it do that after I deleted the raid volume and created a new one? After a short period I could connect to one old share but the folder was empty which I thought was strange? I let it finish over night and rebooted the nas and the raid1 was still healthy but the smart option under storage menu has dissapeared, actually it did when I put in both the new disks.

Maybe its not important, I never used it, but it usedto be there and have dissepeard for some reason. Is the nas still ok, can I trust that it will function alright?

Mijzelf

"After the raid1 was created it started to rebuild the raid as it did when I had one original raid disk and one new, should it do that after I deleted the raid volume and created a new one?"

You created the array on both disks from the beginning? In that case it's not necessary. Did it rebuild after a reboot, or how did that start?

"the smart option under storage menu has dissapeared, actually it did when I put in both the new disks."

That is to be expected. SMART is an installable package on the '325, and the packages are installed on the disks you removed.

Absence of SMART package is no reason to think it won't function right.

iTek

"You created the array on both disks from the beginning?"

Yes. But I had tried to use them together with the original disk to build up raid1 with two new disks as the manual say (replays first one old then the other when the raid1 i rebuilt). That operation looked ok until I rebooted the nas as i described earlier. So I guess there was data on the disks that the nas registered even after I deleted the volume information and started a new raid1 After the rebuild there was no data on the disks exempt for one empty folder. I found that strange thou.

"Did it rebuild after a reboot, or how did that start?

It started to rebuild after I created the raid1, no reboot, as I remember it (pretty sure I'am right)

"Absence of SMART package is no reason to think it won't function right."

Can I start up the nas with the old disk and copy the package to an external media and then put back the new disks again and install it on them?

iTek

Hi.

Noticed that the backup funktion is gone to, I guss that is a package I installed once to. Can I found this packages some ware? The backup function I'd liked to get back.