Connecting Drives Directly to Computer after NV Death

[peregrine]

I have a ReadyNAS NV+ whose better days are behind it. I've replaced the power supply once, replaced a few drives, etc. Recently this unit stopped booting. It powers up and then gives me a blinking blue power light. I've read many forum posts about this light and looked at the reference chart for the LEDs. Originally I believed that the unit was completely dead, without hope. So I called Netgear for some confirmation and to get an idea as to how I can get my data off of the drives. (I have a backup, but it is a few months old. Not too big a deal.)

So I call Netgear expecting the same great service I've gotten from back in the days when it was still Infrant. (Every time I've ever called in the past, I have never had problems getting great support from a very knowledgable person, and at no additional charge.) Unfortunately my experience was much different this time.

The person who takes my call gives his name and ID number (41029 or 11029, maybe) and I explain that I am looking for confirmation of the condition of my drive and some suggestions as to a next step. He doesn't bother to take my name, serial number of my drive or any other details about my or the situation I am dealing with. Rather than try to troubleshoot my problem and confirm what the status is, he just assumes my drive is, in fact, dead.

I ask whether I can plug my drives into a newer ReadyNAS unit and just pick up where I left off. He flat out tells me no. I now understand this to not necessarily be true, as long as I have a unit based on the same architecture. Regardless, he tells me no.

So then I ask if there is any hope for retrieving my data. He then proceeds to tell me that all I have to do is plug the drives into a computer and copy the data off. My ReadyNAS is setup as RAID 5, if I remember correctly.

Now, maybe I'm getting a little rusty, but I told him I didn't think that was right. I've been working with RAID for years, and my understanding is that the data and parity bits are spread across drives such that you need N-1 drives to have a full copy of the data. I try to explain this to the person I was talking to, and he tells me to just plug one drive in after the other and copy the data off. Again, I tell him I think he's wrong. We go back and forth on this issue for a while before I simply thank him and quickly hang up.

So, am I wrong? Is he right? Can I just plug the drives into a computer?

Since that call, I have decided to try new RAM to see if that resolves the problem. At $5 for a replacement chip on Amazon, it is worth a try. But if that fails, I'll need a solution to try to get access to my data. New NV+ units are also available, and I may try that. My only concern is that I don't know what firmware revision I was on prior to the unit dying.

[StephenB]

-Data is spread across the drives with RAID-5, so you cannot retrieve it easily by putting it in a PC. Plus it is EXT3 formatted. There are tools to overcome that, though I suspect you would need to connect at least 3 drives.
-If your disks are healthy you can move them to another NV+ and read the data.
-The OS is actually on the OS partition of the drives, so the new NV+ should still boot up using your original configuration (firmware, users, network, add ons, etc). It is also saved in flash on the unit, but I think that is only used when doing a factory default.

[readysecure1985]

I was trying to find a polite way to say that the agent you talked to had no idea what they were talking about but StephenB did a better job.

[peregrine]

Yeah, I knew he didn't know what he was talking about. Despite how many times he insisted that he was right, I could not convince him he was wrong.

I'm so used to getting poor customer service from most companies I deal with. Netgear (when dealing with ReadyNAS devices) used to be the one exception. I'm sorry to discover this is no longer the case.

Thanks for the responses.

[chirpa]

What was the approximate time of the phone call? Did he ever give you a case number? We can probably pull the call recording for review.

[maxblack]

FWIW peregrine I (and perhaps many others here) acquired a spare chassis after a failure I'd experienced awhile back. Figured it was cheap insurance (and a helpful troubleshooting tool) should I suffer a chassis failure again.

Rather than buy a new one, I got one for "cheap" from member Cheezhead here (his electronics salvage company acquired a bunch of them and he checked them all out), and can highly recommend him, assuming he may still have some of these.

[peregrine]

Thanks for the tip. I sent a PM asking if he had any. We'll see.

In the meantime, I tried new RAM on my existing unit with no luck. Looks like a replacement unit is the only way to go.

So if I have a Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (RND4000), can I put my drives in a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 and have it just recognize my drives?

[chirpa]

v1 and v2 are not compatible, different architectures, so you won't be able to read your data.

[maxblack]

I've been working with RAID for years, and my understanding is that the data and parity bits are spread across drives such that you need N-1 drives to have a full copy of the data.

While we're on this subject, can I ask a related question: is there ANY RAID mode (that works with the ReadyNAS) for which you can put a single drive into a PC and recover the data following a chassis (board/PSU) failure?

[mdgm]

If you use Flex-RAID RAID-0 and a separate RAID-0 volume on each disk that is possible. Or if you use Flex-RAID RAID-1 volumes where each volume includes two disks. This should work on the v2. Not so sure about the v1 as the recovery instructions for the v1 are only for X-RAID. WIth a two disk X-RAID volume you can recover data from disk 1 by connecting that drive to a PC.

[maxblack]

If you use Flex-RAID RAID-0 and a separate RAID-0 volume on each disk that is possible. Or if you use Flex-RAID RAID-1 volumes where each volume includes two disks. This should work on the v2. Not so sure about the v1 as the recovery instructions for the v1 are only for X-RAID. WIth a two disk X-RAID volume you can recover data from disk 1 by connecting that drive to a PC.

I seemed to recall something no-so-good about RAID-0 so I looked it up again: Uses all the space on the disks to store data, but it does not protect against disk failure... If one disk fails, you lose all the data.

Not very desirable.

It appears that even if FlexRAID RAID-1 worked in the v1, you would effectively halve your capacity (and increase complexity with two volumes) so that doesn't look too appealing either.

Thanks alot mdgm you are a treasure trove of information.

[GaWd]

RAID0 is a stripe. RAID0 writes the data across both disks, and if you lose a disk, your data is gone, too. Double your space, but no security in the case of failure.

RAID1 is a mirror. RAID1 is 2 identical disks (hence the term "mirror"). Half the total amount of storage, but redundancy in the case of failure.

RAID5 allows 3 or more disks to have data striped across all volumes, plus each disk will have a parity block on another disk. So in a 3-disk RAID5 array, you can lose a single disk and not lose your data. Your volume will be unprotected-lose one more disk and you're hosed-but you can rebuild the array with a replacement drive.

I use RAID5 whenever possible, because I don't have lots of spare disk space or money to spend on some of the other high-performance RAID schemas like RAID1+0, RAID10, or the other hybrid RAID arrays.

[mdgm]

If you read my post again I was talking about having a separate RAID-0 volume on each disk i.e. with 3x2TB disks in a NV+ you could have 3 volumes C, D and E. A striped RAID-0 volume is also an option but not recommended as as you mention if any one disk fails all the data on RAID-0 volumes utilising that disk are lost. On the v2, there is a Flex-RAID JBOD option which sets up a separate RAID-0 volume for each disk. Still personally I wouldn't recommend using RAID-0 for primary storage of important data regardless of whether you use single disk volumes or not.

[GaWd]

If you read my post again...

mdgm, what I said was general info for the people taking part in the discussion, it wasn't directed at you. Flex-RAID JBOD sounds cool if you end up with multiple self-contained RAID0's.