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[lozinthevilla]

Hello

I have been reading all your woes with hard disk failures and wrong drives being formatted and RAID 1 being degraded etc.

As one of my disks has recently gone 'pop', taking advice from the good people on this forum I backed up as much data I could rescue before swapping out the dead disk.

I have two Seagate ST31500341AS disks in my dns 323 and firmware 1.08.

I followed the manufacturer's instructions and I was 'not let down' to find that the dns 323 had decided to format both drives to create a stable RAID 1.

Fortunately I have my backup, so no tears. Just a little effort in putting data back on.

At the moment the dns 323 is now telling me the Sync Time Remaining:    259.8 minute(s). Which I find puzzling as it said the disks would be formatted. So what is it Syncing I wonder?

I must say I have found the whole process quite chaotic and a voyage into the unknown to say the least and leads me to wonder...

1. How long has this disk/RAID 1 problem been an issue?
2. Do you think D-Link do anything about the situation soon?
3. Is there a 'howto' on disk swapping/RAID1 restoration for anyone on firmware 1.08?

Thanks
loz

[gunrunnerjohn]

Personally, I've decided that RAID-1 on this box really isn't worth the effort.  It slows things down, and since you really need an external backup anyway, what's the real point?  The only protection you get is from a disk failure, and that shouldn't be an everyday occurrence.

I have RAID-1 on my primary NAS that is actually in use for live data, I want that to be available in case of a drive failure.  The two D-Link boxes are just used for backup, so I formatted them in EXT3 for the added reliability and just use a single drive in them.

[dosborne]

I had a new HDD fail and I tried reformatting and rebuilding a few times. I was quite impressed with the way the dlink software handled it and I had no data loss running v1.08.

I wonder if it has something to do with left vs right, primary vs master etc.

Even 2 clean HDD's have a short sync time. Any access to the shares during this time significantly extends the sync rebuild time.

[gunrunnerjohn]

I tested the RAID by yanking a disk, I tried each side.  It appeared to function, but I've never had an actual hard drive failure in either of my D-Link NAS boxes.

[JoeHombre]

I have experienced this exact same problem - twice.  The first time (fw 1.06) I had just purchased the DNS-323 and was a first-time user of RAID-1.  When a HD failed and I installed a new one, I expected a Re-Sync would take place and the RAID array would be established on the replacement HD.  That did not happen, instead both HDs were formatted as RAID-1 and all previous data was gone (of course I had a backup).  I assumed that this was my fault due to my lack of experience with RAID-1 and with the DSN-323.

Now, three years later (fw 1.08), I removed one of my two 500GB Samsung HDs (HD502IJ), from the Left Slot and replaced it with a 1TB Samsung (HD103SJ).  This should have resulted in a 500GB RAID-1 and a 500GB JBOD which is what I wanted.  Again I expected the RAID-1 array on the 500GM HD (Right Slot) to be transferred to the 1TB HD but didn’t happen.  Just like the first time both HDs were formatted as RAID-1 and data previously on the 500GB HD was lost (again I had a backup).

In both the first time and second time attempting a Re-Sync, the DNS-323 menu (TOOLS; RAID) said that “the newly installed HD would be reformatted).  This is what I expected and proceeded to format.  But rather that formatting only the replaced HD, both HDs were formatted.

Anyone know if this a bug or what I’m missing here?

JH

[gunrunnerjohn]

You should thank your lucky stars you have a backup!

[JoeHombre]

Gunrunnerjohn, I have read many of your post where you employ folks to make backups and that RAID is not a substitute for backups.  I agree with you.  So it’s not luck that saved me rather it’s the same philosophy as yours.

My issue for D-Link is that on the DNS-323, when changing a HD, RAID-1 Re-Sync did not work as I expected.  Therefore, given that RAID-1 is not a substitute for backing up data - why doesn’t the DNS-323 Re-Sync a RAID-1 HD with a replacement HD?  Or is it that contrary to expectations, the DNS-323 does not perform this function?

JH

[gunrunnerjohn]

Like I said, I tested this with the DNS-323 and DNS-321, and it worked as expected.  I have seen a number of people here that have had your experience with both drives getting nuked, so obviously there's some *****s in the armor of the RAID-1 recovery process.

One reason I chose to abandon RAID on these devices and simply have extra layers of backup.  In addition, my Synology DS209 running RAID-1 is far faster, so it's a better choice for primary access.  The D-Link NAS units are used for unattended backups from the main NAS.

[fordem]

Anyone know if this a bug or what I’m missing here?

JH

Were the "replacement" drives new, or at least clean and free of partitions and data, or were they used?

[JoeHombre]

Fordem,

Initially, yes, in both cases the replacement HDs were new -- never formatted.

With my current attempt to upgrade from two 500GB drives to a 1TB matched with one of the 500GB drives, I have the second 500GH with the original RAID-1 array still present.  So after the first 500GB HD and 1TB HD reformatted both, I was able to try the second 500GB HD with the 1TB HD that was formatted in my first attempt at RAID-1.  However, I stopped short of proceeding when I saw nothing new that would indicate it would work so still have a 500GB HD with the previous RAID-1 array intact.

JH

[jamieburchell]

This should have resulted in a 500GB RAID-1 and a 500GB JBOD which is what I wanted.  Again I expected the RAID-1 array on the 500GM HD (Right Slot) to be transferred to the 1TB HD but didn’t happen.

How can you have a RAID array and JBOD on two drives?

[JoeHombre]

In my case, I paired a 1TB HD with a 500GB HD.  RAID-1 will set the largest size it can which means a 500GB RAID-1 Volume and convert the remaining space to JBOD which means 500GB for my situation.  Therefore, Volume 1 is 500GB RAID-1 and Volume 2 is 500 GB JBOD.

[gunrunnerjohn]

Actually, the extra 500gigs would be a plain disk partition, JBOD implies two disks.

[JoeHombre]

Below is copy of info from my 323's menu showing Volume _1 Type as RAID 1 and Volume_2 Type as JBOD.  I have set Volume_1 as drive N: and Volume_2 as drive O:

So far I have only copied files to N:


HARD DRIVE INFO :
Total Drive(s):  2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Volume Name:  Volume_1
Volume Type:  RAID 1
Sync Time Remaining:  Completed
Total Hard Drive Capacity:  490402 MB
Used Space:  60462 MB
Unused Space:  429939 MB



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume Name:  Volume_2
Volume Type:  JBOD
Total Hard Drive Capacity:  493851 MB
Used Space:  73 MB
Unused Space:  493777 MB

[fordem]

Actually, the extra 500gigs would be a plain disk partition, JBOD implies two disks.

As JoeHombre as pointed out - D-Link would term the "non-RAID" volume in his configuration JBOD, what I would like to point out is that there are several different interpretations of the acronym JBOD, and in it's most basic interpretation it implies multiple independent disks which D-Link has termed standard volumes.

Prior to my acquiring my DNS-323 a few years ago, the above interpretation is the one I was familiar with, rather than D-Link's "concatenated" interpretation.