Unfortunately no one can be told what fun_plug is - you have to see it for yourself.
You are not logged in.
I've been look at these forums for 2 weeks fiddling with my DNS-323, and decided it was time to just ask.
I have tried many arrangements to get 2 copies of my data on the DNS.. the obvious was RAID, but I had problems with the slot 1 disk (RHS) disappearing (LED goes pink). The disk is fine and after a format it works great again for a few days then it happens again. I discovered that a lot of people have stability issues with RAID, so i tried chumby's "psudo raid" posted at http://dns323.kood.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1150.
This worked great as well for a few days then slot 2 just disappeared from the unit. The LEDs are both blue, but the status page no longer has slot 2. Although it does say 2 drives - only the first one is listed...My status page looks like this...
HARD DRIVE INFO :
Total Drive(s): 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume Name: Volume_1
Total Hard Drive Capacity: 983454 MB
Used Space: 375193 MB
Unused Space: 608260 MB
PHYSICAL DISK INFO :
Slot Vendor Model Serial Number Size
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1 WD-WCAU4A147383 1000 G
Normally it would list the second volume and the second slot with the other disc. A soft reboot has no effect, but powering the unit down and restarting it and everything works again. 2-3 days later during the nightly sync, the drives just disappears again.
Thoughts?
whiteatom
Offline
This just happened again - so I logged into telnet and checked the dmesg.. can came across hundreds of this line:
scsi1 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device
Is this a power save setting causing the drive to go off line? Is the drive shot? It's only a week old and has no errors when I check it in the WD software on my windows box....
Cheers
whiteatom
Offline
It doesn't say why the drive is offline, just that it is offline.
You may have a problem with the drive or with the DNS-323 - one way to find out is to temporarily disable that "chumby stuff" and to swap the drives from left to right - if the problem swaps also, it's the drive, if the problem remains with the left slot, then it's the slot. Once you have located and fixed the problem you can re-enable the "chumby stuff" after making sure that the source and destination disks are the ones intended".
For what it's worth - I've been running a DNS-323 for some two and a half years, every firmware from 1.02~1.08 beta - I've had no stability issues with RAID1.
Finally - it's important to note that whilst RAID1 does make two copies of your data, and so does chumby's work-around - there's a little more to RAID1 than just two copies of the data, it's designed to perform a specific task, if you like to meet a specific need, and chumby's work-around [i]cannot perform tha task or meet that need. I can't help but wonder how much of the instability issues you mentioned have resulted from folks not understanding how RAID1 works, what it was meant to do - and - having incorrect expectations.
Last edited by fordem (2009-08-12 15:48:50)
Offline
hmm.. even if the drive was bad.. shouldn't the slot still show up with - - - - in it?
I just wish this thing worked like it's advertised to.. it's so close, but it's frustrating.
I have noticed that it's a large change in the data that triggers the problem. It needs to be copying for over half an hour and then the drive will just disappear.
When I swap an format the drives (for the millionth time).. there is no problem syncing, but i get the pink LED (same as i did in RAID1). I guess I'll RMA the drive and see what happens.
What do I tell WD? the drive is fine in my desktop - no errors, no smart problems. How do I RMA a drive that is only failing in this device? suggestions?
Is there any other log in can look in for more details of why the drive is shutting down?
Offline
Sorry, you replied whilst I was editing my earlier post.
As far as I know there is no log that you can check, I could be wrong on that - regarding what should show on the status page - the device doesn't necessarily do what you & I might think logical, especially when it comes to detecting a defective drive.
I couldn't tell you what the unit is programmed to consider as defective - other than a drive that is completely dead and unresponsive - I have (in the early days) inserted and successfully formatted drives that were unusable in a PC, turned out they were unusable in the DNS-323 also, but the DNS-323 couldn't tell that, I also don't think anyone can definitively state what triggers the "pink" light, some of the causes are known (have been discovered by trial & error) but, there is not supposed to be a "pink" light, just blue or amber (the pink occurs when they are on together).
Offline
Hmm.. That's interesting about the LEDs. I should probably also mention that this morning I'm trying to trigger the problem and I heard the drive spin down - then the rsync failed. So the drive is being powered down somehow.
I do understand what RAID1 is for and it's what I truly want. I'm only using the device for weekly backups and I just want to protect myself against a drive failure - not so that the system will keep running even, just so that I have a backup even if a drive dies (I've had a few very critical drives go in my days). This back up is not intended as a method of recovering accidentialy deleted files - just as a way to not loose everything when the drive in my network server dies (I have 5 roommates and an xbox accessing video and music off one PC so the drive there works very hard).
I hoped to just plug this in, put 2 drives in it, set up a weekly task to copy to the network and forget it... ugg. So close, yet so far.
I'll RMA this drive and see if that fixes the problems - thanks for your help.
whiteatom
Offline
Ok.. so it's for sure the drive.
Apparently the 323 is not very intelligent in how it uses drives. Windows didn't see an error, and the Western Dig software didn't see anything, but an extended test does find a "sector inconsistency failure". Called western Dig and they asked if I was using it in a device other then a PC. They told me that although most OS's will power through a single sector error without complaint - they have problems with PS3s and NAS units not being happy.
Drive is in for RMA now and I hope that's the end of my problems! I'll give you the update when i get the new on installed..
but my lesson from this:
The DNS-323 needs PERFECT hard drives.
Cheers,
whiteatom
Last edited by whiteatom (2009-08-12 18:27:44)
Offline