Disk Failure Detected...

[ferg]

That's pretty worrying. I've still got 4 of these drives out of a total of 6 drives (raid 6) in my Readynas Pro. I keep getting random SMART errors still. Usually when I do a raid scrub.

[thestumper]

Count me in...

I've experienced all the problems in this thread and have the same log files to show for it. I've been through all the tetsing tools and everything says the drives are fine. I talked to tech support last night and the guy was really nice, but not very helpful (not his fault). They offered to send me a new Ultra 4+, but I fail to see how this is going to solve the problem. I'm running OS X Snow Leopard on two systems in my home, and both are leveraging Time Machine to the NAS.

I'm pretty frustrated with this. I have an official case now, but this has been going on for almost 3 months. I don't think I should have to cough up additional cash to buy new drives given that these Seagates were listed in the official HCL. I see one of three options as being acceptable:

1) Fix this issue (preferred)
2) Credit me for the drives
3) Credit me for the Ultra 4+

I don't have much confidence in (1) actually happening any time soon, but that would be the best option. Unfortunately, I can't wait around for a protracted period of time hoping that Netgear figures this out while my data is at risk. (2) would be the next best solution - they said the drives were good, I bought them, and they were wrong. (3) is an option of last resort. I like my Ultra 4+; when it works it's a great piece of kit. I don't want to have to consider another vendor (QNAP, etc.) because I'm not sure these drives are supported there either (but I will be checking).

Anyway, I have to contact support again, and I'll be referencing this thread. Beyond that I'm not sure what my options are beyond crossing Netgear off the list of vendors I do business with. That would suck, because I've always had really good luck with just about everything I've ever bought (or recommended) from them.

-Eric

[Pian]

Exactly the same problem here.

But - in a rather ironic twist - my latest failure happened when a L3 engineer was controlling my mac using teamviewer! I had a Time Machine backup running and was having afp issues which he was examining when, lo and behold, up popped the disk failure popup.

He took the logs and has raised to Engineering.

In the mean time I have - once again - removed and reseated the disk, and am currently busy re-syncing.

[bokvast]

Once again my NAS reported a discfailure. I reinserted the drive and its now resyncing... What should I do??

NETGEAR!?!
I NEED HELP!!!

[ferg]

I've just had a disc failure. This makes 4 "real" failures, and 3 where the disc (ST2000DL003) is reported to be failed, but starts working after removing and reinserting (and rebooting).

[ferg]

Looks like I lied. I've just had a 8th failure. The Readynas literally reported a disc failure just now as I clicked SUBMIT for that post thread. I'm gonna open a support case.

[thestumper]

Update:

It has been almost three weeks since I have opened a case. It has been a frustrating experience so far. I have "factory defaulted" the unit once, and a week or so later, I had another disk failure. I think I'm over ten at this point. After the last failure, the "engineers" looked at the unit and said they could find no problems, and nothing in the logs. I gave tech support remote access and booted the unit into some sort of maintenance/debug mode. Oddly enough, they wanted Telnet (port 23) forwarded, and not SSH (22) which I found strange. Perhaps "debug mode" only has hooks for Telnet?

Anyway, I now have a new firmware to try - it appears to be Beta code: 4.2.20-T15. This was the recommendation given to me by engineering. I applied the new firmware about 20 minutes ago, so now it's time to sit and wait.

I will commend Tech Support on their responsiveness; I have had difficulty conveying/re-conveying information to them at times, and so far the answers I have received have not been too helpful, but they have been polite and quick to respond. It feels like they are just walking me through a script for the most part, but we will see how the new firmware performs. The next step is an RMA, which will almost certainly NOT help, but again, it's part of the process for now.

I will keep everyone updated as this evolves.

[turbogizzmo]

Add me to the list. Seagate RMA'd a few drives and Netgear RMA'd the Pro. I figured out the power off, reseat drive and power on trick but its starting to become annoying because I run a ESX server off this system. Not sure if I should wait for Seagate/Netgear to sort this out or if i should start sourcing other solutions. (My old Buffalo Terastation Pro has run flawlessly, just sloooow)

Sad but glad to find this thread......

[PapaBear]

Maybe Netgear needs to take these drives off the HCL. I know that even as a long time Seagate user (very satisified) I'm staying about as far away from these drives as I can and am advising my friends to do so as well, especially if they use Macs.

[opt2bout]

I have a RMA'd chasis, same drive ST2000DL003 which I only bought because of the HCL. I have two in this unit, and they will alernate failed status randomly whenever I reflash the unit. (note that just removing and adding the drive back into the chasis doesn't do it for me, I have to power down and up before it adds the "failed" drive back into the array. Then after a couple of Time Machine backups, one of the new ST2000DL003 drives fail.

I too am going to try the latest beta. I shied away from this because support won't support betas, but since 4.2.19 doesn't fix the problem, and I have an open case like the rest of you, what do I have to lose??!?

I did get an update from the support engineer back on 11/10 with a link to Seagate's forums ????
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda- ... 154/page/2

[thestumper]

In my case, Netgear actually recommended the beta code. It didn't help - I have yet another failure with it. I've noted my open case, so now it's in Negear's court. As far as I am concerned, they need to fix this (quickly), refund my purchase price for the NAS, or refund my purchase price for the disks. I have a unit I can't trust; to be honest I can barely use it at this point, and I bought the drives the Netgear themselves said were compatible. I have a copy of the old list in case they change it, which they probably should (at least make a note). This has been happening since August for me, and if we don't get to a resolution in a couple weeks, we're headed to small claims court. I hate to do that, but I don't think they have a clue how to fix the issue. I love the thing when it works, but it is useless to me at the moment and has been for quite some time.

Keep the good posts coming - it's nice to know I'm not alone in this

[opt2bout]

I'm on day 2 with the new 4.2.20-T15 so its been running 24 hours now. But in the past it would always take a couple of days before it would fail. The problem appears to be with the new firmware and these specific drives from Seagate. If you downgrade to 4.2.17 you won't have the problems (I ran two full months with 4.2.17 and two these drives with no issues at all). Of course if you have any computers that are running Mac OS X Lion, you can't do that. They are working on trying to figure out why the combination of the newer firmware is failing these drives.

[Pian]

I was running .20-beta when my disk "failed" while being controlled by a Level 3 support.

[thestumper]

I'm almost convinced at this point that it is a Time Machine compatibility problem; there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence piling up that would suggest that the problem lies there. It doesn't make me feel any better - Time Machine AND these drives were supported when I bought the NAS. Right now I have my Ultra 4+ sitting here in "Debug Mode" waiting for a Level 3 engineer to log in and poke around. My guess is that they will find exactly what they found the last time they logged in: nothing.

I'm tempted to use another backup program to see if the problem persists. Carbon Copy Cloner would probably work for me, and it would be interesting to see how long it would go without failure running that instead of Time Machine. The problem with that is, well... I let Netgear off the hook and they end up closing my case without actually SOLVING the problem. Plus, I do like Time Machine for what it is and leverage it on multiple machines here.

Does everyone here have a case open for this? I would be curious to see how many there are, plus it might be helpful to reference other cases in our own cases to keep support focussed. I would especially like to see what Plan finds out, as his unit failed when the tech was logged in!

[Pian]

My case is still open, and I chase my L3 contact once a week or so to see if here has been any progress (none so far).

One interesting aside - I bought four of these disks for my NVX. But I had my first "failure" after I had only put 3 in, so decided against using the fourth and was going to buy another (pre Thai floods). While it was lying around I though I would use it in my Time Capsule - into which I had already installed a 1TB non-Apple disk with no issues a year or two ago. I put it in and have been using Time Machine to it from a number of machines for a number of weeks. BUT ... every week to ten days something goes wrong and the Time Machines cannot find the Time Capsule (NAConnectToServerSync error 64), even though I can access the Time Machine using Time Machine Utility. The problem is solved by rebooting the Time Capsule.

Anecdotal evidence to support your thesis of an incompatibility between these drives and Time Machine.