NAS326, Raid Array is gone

I did a disk swap on my NAS326 and then let it recreate the array (data is safely backed up) but something has gone wrong.

I can see the attached USB disk in file manager but when I log in I get a warning window that the volume is down and when I click OK it tries to open the Storage Manager but it just gets stuck spinning and the Storage Manager never shows...

How can I recreate the RAID through CLI?

Data is no issue, the disks are empty. A 2TB USB disk is attached.

I noticed that these commands where asked for from several with disk problems:

*********************************************
~ $ cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md3 : active raid1 sda3[0]
      7809895232 blocks super 1.2 [1/1] [U]

md2 : inactive sdc3[2](S)
      7809895424 blocks super 1.2

md1 : active raid1 sda2[3](F) sdc2[2]
      1998784 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [U_]

md0 : active raid1 sda1[3](F) sdc1[2]
      1997760 blocks super 1.2 [2/1] [U_]

unused devices: <none>
*********************************************

~ $ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

   7        0     144384 loop0
  31        0       2048 mtdblock0
  31        1       2048 mtdblock1
  31        2      10240 mtdblock2
  31        3      15360 mtdblock3
  31        4     108544 mtdblock4
  31        5      15360 mtdblock5
  31        6     108544 mtdblock6
   8        0 7814026584 sda
   8        1    1998848 sda1
   8        2    1999872 sda2
   8        3 7810026496 sda3
   8       16 1953514584 sdb
   8       17    1998848 sdb1
   8       18    1999872 sdb2
   8       19 1949513728 sdb3
   8       32 7814026584 sdc
   8       33    1998848 sdc1
   8       34    1999872 sdc2
   8       35 7810026496 sdc3
   9        0    1997760 md0
   9        1    1998784 md1
   9        3 7809895232 md3
*********************************************
   
~ $ cat /proc/mounts
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600 0 0
ubi4:ubi_rootfs1 /firmware/mnt/nand ubifs ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/md0 /firmware/mnt/sysdisk ext4 ro,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/loop0 /ram_bin ext2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/loop0 /usr ext2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/loop0 /lib/security ext2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/loop0 /lib/modules ext2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/loop0 /lib/locale ext2 ro,relatime 0 0
/dev/ram0 /tmp/tmpfs tmpfs rw,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
/dev/ram0 /usr/local/etc tmpfs rw,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
ubi2:ubi_config /etc/zyxel ubifs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sdb3 /e-data/b4fa2cb18c2f5d504382573ffc0d02b1 fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096 0 0
configfs /sys/kernel/config configfs rw,relatime 0 0
*********************************************

~ # mdadm --examine /dev/sd[ab]3
/dev/sda3:
          Magic : a92b4efc
        Version : 1.2
    Feature Map : 0x0
     Array UUID : dbcfc7cd:54ba8c26:de73660d:fe581665
           Name : NAS:3  (local to host NAS)
  Creation Time : Wed May  4 20:13:45 2022
     Raid Level : raid1
   Raid Devices : 1

 Avail Dev Size : 15619790848 (7448.10 GiB 7997.33 GB)
     Array Size : 7809895232 (7448.10 GiB 7997.33 GB)
  Used Dev Size : 15619790464 (7448.10 GiB 7997.33 GB)
    Data Offset : 262144 sectors
   Super Offset : 8 sectors
          State : clean
    Device UUID : 4b173a40:1b7baed4:17fe2fa6:4a545d21

    Update Time : Wed May  4 20:21:23 2022
       Checksum : 31749dc6 - correct
         Events : 2


   Device Role : Active device 0
   Array State : A ('A' == active, '.' == missing)
/dev/sdb3:
   MBR Magic : aa55
Partition[0] :   4294967295 sectors at   4294967295 (type ff)
Partition[1] :   4294967295 sectors at   4294967295 (type ff)
Partition[2] :   4294967295 sectors at   4294967295 (type ff)
Partition[3] :   2559274239 sectors at   4294967295 (type ff)



Accepted Solution

  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,600  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    Answer ✓
    Data is no issue, the disks are empty. A 2TB USB disk is attached.

    Remove the USB disk, to prevent mistakes, reboot the nas. Login over ssh, and execute

    su

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=16M count=1

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=16M count=1

    reboot

    This overwrites the partition tables, and after a reboot the disks will be seen as empty and new.




All Replies

  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,600  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    Answer ✓
    Data is no issue, the disks are empty. A 2TB USB disk is attached.

    Remove the USB disk, to prevent mistakes, reboot the nas. Login over ssh, and execute

    su

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=16M count=1

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=16M count=1

    reboot

    This overwrites the partition tables, and after a reboot the disks will be seen as empty and new.




  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    Mijzelf Thanks so much! That worked like a charm!
  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    Well, it seems I shouted too soon... :(

    When it's going to recreate the RAID1it gets stuck at 99% with message:

    Processing,please wait.
    Creating the 1st volume

    Then the unit starts beeping like crazy...

  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,600  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    Afaik there are 3 reasons for the box to beep:
    • Overheating
    • No feedback that the fan is running
    • A degraded array
    So my guess is that one of the disks has a bad part, and the raid manager dropped that disk as soon as that part was accessed. Your problem started when you exchanged a disk. Why did you do that?

  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    I added new disks to upgrade from 2TB to 8TB...

    It's not overheating, the fan is running (from time to time) so it's the array.

    It starts beeping after the raid creation is at 99%.

    I wonder, can the failed attempts have "messed" up the disks/disk somehow?
    It brand new disks...

    Is it possible the complete "reset" the disks to "new" again?
  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,600  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    I wonder, can the failed attempts have "messed" up the disks/disk somehow?
    No. Your attempts only have written data to the disks. That is what disks are made for.
    It brand new disks...
    That doesn't say much. A brand new disk has a bigger chance to die in the first few hours than a month old disk (which already survived that first hours). Have a look at the SMART values.
    Is it possible the complete "reset" the disks to "new" again?
    No. Yes. A new disk is filled with zero's, and it's possible to write zero's to the disk.
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=16M
    That will take a long time (it writes maybe 100MB/sec. Do the math), and it won't actually do something, as the OS doesn't read it. When the partition table is empty, it simply assumes the content of the disk is bogus.
    On the other hand, when the write (after several hours) fails in an I/O error, you know for sure the disk is unreliable.

  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    edited May 2022
    Mijzelf, your help is very much appreciated!

    I've tried to get it running again and swapped places on the disks but it's still the same, it gets stuck at 99% and it starts beeping.
    I'd guess it's one of the diska then that is bad... Is it possible to run a "disk check" somehow without the very time-consuming "zero rewrite" that you'd happen to know about?

    (The math tells me it's about 23 hours to "zero rewrite the disk, and I assume I have to do that one disk at the time)
  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,600  Guru Member
    First Anniversary 10 Comments Friend Collector First Answer
    You can do two disks at the same time. Just open a 2nd terminal. I think the throughput per disk will be lower, but not half.

    Is it possible to run a "disk check" somehow
    I already mentioned SMART. That should be available in the webinterface, and tells you how the disk itself thinks about it's own health.

  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    Mijzelf, your help is very much appreciated!

    I've tried to get it running again and swapped places on the disks but it's still the same, it gets stuck at 99% and it starts beeping.
    I'd guess it's one of the diska then that is bad... Is it possible to run a "disk check" somehow without the very time-consuming "zero rewrite" that you'd happen to know about?

    (The math tells me it's about 23 hours to "zero rewrite the disk, and I assume I have to do that disk by disk...)
  • awasen
    awasen Posts: 7
    Friend Collector
    @Mijzelf thanks for all the help! I learned a lot but in the end it turns out it's the Zyxel box that is toast... :(

    I bought a new Synology NAS instead and when setting up the disk in it (the same disks) they where chopped up with a lot of weird partitions. After deleting all partitions and have Synology set them up, the disks run fine and an extensive disk-check in Synology (took 8 hours).

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