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Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:57 pm
by Kalab
Hi,
I tried to replace the smallest hard drive in my RAID 5 with a larger one. Since doing that the RAID 5 shows the status "Not Active". Details are below:

–Physical Disks
Drive 1 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB
Drive 2 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB
Drive 3 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 0 MB
Drive 4 -- -- No Disk

–Logical Volumes
Single Disk: Drive 4 -- -- Invalid
RAID 5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 -- -- Not active

I have contacted support but it is a weekend and there being an 8 hour time difference, support during the week will be difficult, so I hope that this board's members will be able to help me a bit. I notice in other posts that a telnet session with support seems to have fixed things, so I am wondering what telnet commends I need to use to activate the RAID.

Thanks

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:18 pm
by jasonhyland
Not to hijkack your thread, but I got a similar problem ....

Code: Select all

Drive 1	SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0	931.51 GB	Ready	Scan now	Good
Drive 2	--	        --	                           No Disk	        Scan now	---
Drive 3	SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0	931.51 GB	Ready	Scan now	Good
Drive 4	SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0	931.51 GB	Ready	Scan now	Good
Drive 5	SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0	931.51 GB	Ready	Scan now	Good

Logical Volumes
Volume	                                       Total Size	Free Size	Status	Format	        Check Disk	Delete Disk Volume
RAID 5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 4 5	--	         --	        Not active	Format now	Check now  	Remove now
So, Disk 2 died on me earlier, but it brought the array down ?

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:08 pm
by Kalab
Kalab wrote: –Physical Disks
Drive 1 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB
Drive 2 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB
Drive 3 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 0 MB
Drive 4 -- -- No Disk

–Logical Volumes
Single Disk: Drive 4 -- -- Invalid
RAID 5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 -- -- Not active
This now looks slightly different after a reboot:

–Physical Disks

Drive 1 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB Ready Scan now Good
Drive 2 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB Ready Scan now Good
Drive 3 SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA0 931.51 GB Ready Scan now Good
Drive 4 -- -- No Disk Scan now ---

–Logical Volumes

RAID 5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 -- -- Not active

Still just as broken and useless though

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:45 pm
by fribse
I don't think there's much co-users can help you with. You really need to contact them via MSN or Skype, they do have long hours, so it should be possible :-)
What firmware are you using?

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 12:10 am
by jasonhyland
Well support was as much use as a chocolate teapot!

I am so raging angry now, I will have to think my next steps.

I contacted QNAP support via MSN, and they telneted into my box. After a series of a linux commands, the reply was " pls contact data recovery company to rescue the data.". Just to recap, all that has happened is one drive failed with a read/write failure and dismounted. Now call me dumb, but my thinking was that RAID 5 should support this? I shouldn't be required to contact a data recovery company for anything!

Of course, my important stuff (20GB or so) is backed up via MOZY (thank god!), but of course I have loads of stuff that this 4TB array was storing that simply couldn't be backed up. It's not the end of the world, but it's a real pain in the arse to obtain.

SO MUCH FOR QNAP !

Argh!

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:35 am
by petur
hmmm QNAP support is normally pretty good at getting a NAS back to life...

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:54 am
by jasonhyland
So I'd heard - I'm not giving up, the guy who was dealing with me seemed to be in hurry "I'm logging off, I'm going off work now". This, plus, it seems a simple dropped disk, I can't beleive this isn't some "glitch" in the software state.

But to be honest, if I was looking for a high-avail solution, I'd now stear clear of QNAP - I cna live with a few days downtime, but I've TOTALLY lost faith in the box now.

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:11 am
by petur
jasonhyland wrote:So I'd heard - I'm not giving up, the guy who was dealing with me seemed to be in hurry "I'm logging off, I'm going off work now". This, plus, it seems a simple dropped disk, I can't beleive this isn't some "glitch" in the software state.
So, contact them again....

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:44 am
by Kalab
Well I have logged a ticket with QNAP support on Sunday morning, still no reply now. Support by messenger and Skype still isn't online at 00:45 GMT. I have to go to work during the week like most people and my QNAP unit is at home, so contacting them when they are around and I am not near the box is quite difficult. I did see that QNAP were logged into messenger this morning, but they hadn't replied after an hour as I left for work.

If they sell products here I expect support in my timezone and an SLA on a support ticket to be less than 24 hours. Anything less is bad support.

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 8:46 am
by SEAN
alli can say is that qnap. your company is making total unreliable junk, i have tried to stick with them but its got to the stage you spend more time fixing problems then you do using there equipment, i have 509 pro which is designed for small buisnesses, what a joke, its time for qnap to stand up admit they are making crap. i came back from a weekend to find a disk had died in raid 5 and all my critical data lost, please people put the word out there, you cant depend on qnaps products when it comes to the crunch, i bought a netgear nv+ at the same time and i promise you i never had to look at it, anyway, i finally have given up, tommorow im going to buy a NETGEAR nas pro, something i can depaend on. SHAME ON QNAP FOR THE JUNK YOU ARE MANUFACTURING, ITS NOT FAIR .

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:35 pm
by fribse
To put it shortly Sean, rubbish.

I've had a few disks give up on me over time, including on the ts-509, never had a RAID failure.
Furthermore, you are fooling yourself if you don't do backup, you will always loose your 'important data' that way.
I've worked with very large SAN's, RAID's, and I've never seen a situation were the judgement was that backup wasn't necessary.

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:39 pm
by fribse
Kalab wrote:Well I have logged a ticket with QNAP support on Sunday morning, still no reply now. Support by messenger and Skype still isn't online at 00:45 GMT. I have to go to work during the week like most people and my QNAP unit is at home, so contacting them when they are around and I am not near the box is quite difficult. I did see that QNAP were logged into messenger this morning, but they hadn't replied after an hour as I left for work.

If they sell products here I expect support in my timezone and an SLA on a support ticket to be less than 24 hours. Anything less is bad support.
Geez, you wan't them to react on every request within 24h? Unrealistic, you'll need to pay far more for support like that, beleive me, I approve a lot of purchases, and the price for 24h reaction time is horrendous!

You don't need to be there yourself to have QNAP look at the box.
Open up SSH access temporarily to your nas from the Internet, then when you get in touch with them via MSN or Skype, you can just give them the IP of the box at that time (and username / password).

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:18 pm
by jasonhyland
fribse wrote:To put it shortly Sean, rubbish.
I can understand his frustration, but not the sentiment.
fribse wrote: I've had a few disks give up on me over time, including on the ts-509, never had a RAID failure.
Furthermore, you are fooling yourself if you don't do backup, you will always loose your 'important data' that way.
I've worked with very large SAN's, RAID's, and I've never seen a situation were the judgement was that backup wasn't necessary.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect these things to "just work". My experience teached me
  • RAID is not a backup it's a higer level of availability, so...
  • Stil need a backup strategy
  • RAID protects against disk failure, not power or software failure!
  • Perhaps mission criticial data should be on hardware RAID
Anyway, my view of QNAP is fully restored. Contacted support today, got a very helpful guy how advised;
  • Upgrade to bew 3.1 FW, which has a "RECOVER" option
  • Click "RECOVER" - Array became active, degraded !!!!
  • Eject and insert HDD2 (which is a new replacement)
  • Array is rebuilding, shares now available
I put this down to a very lucky escape. I'm off to get some eSATA drives for backup, and a UPS "just in case" !

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:05 pm
by QNAPJason
Kalab wrote:Well I have logged a ticket with QNAP support on Sunday morning, still no reply now. Support by messenger and Skype still isn't online at 00:45 GMT. I have to go to work during the week like most people and my QNAP unit is at home, so contacting them when they are around and I am not near the box is quite difficult. I did see that QNAP were logged into messenger this morning, but they hadn't replied after an hour as I left for work.

If they sell products here I expect support in my timezone and an SLA on a support ticket to be less than 24 hours. Anything less is bad support.
Dear Kalab,
Has anyone from our Technical Support Department contacted you?
If not, can you please PM me your contact info so that I can personally tell our Technical Support Department?
We'll need your permission to login to your NAS though.

Sincerely,

Jason

Re: Raid 5 error - "Not active"

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:42 pm
by Kalab
fribse wrote:
Kalab wrote:Well I have logged a ticket with QNAP support on Sunday morning, still no reply now. Support by messenger and Skype still isn't online at 00:45 GMT. I have to go to work during the week like most people and my QNAP unit is at home, so contacting them when they are around and I am not near the box is quite difficult. I did see that QNAP were logged into messenger this morning, but they hadn't replied after an hour as I left for work.

If they sell products here I expect support in my timezone and an SLA on a support ticket to be less than 24 hours. Anything less is bad support.
Geez, you wan't them to react on every request within 24h? Unrealistic, you'll need to pay far more for support like that, beleive me, I approve a lot of purchases, and the price for 24h reaction time is horrendous!

You don't need to be there yourself to have QNAP look at the box.
Open up SSH access temporarily to your nas from the Internet, then when you get in touch with them via MSN or Skype, you can just give them the IP of the box at that time (and username / password).
Fribse, I really don't want to offend you, but this is from QNAP's own site: http://www.qnap.com/onlinesupport.asp

"We'll reply you by e-mail within 24 hours after your submission (working days only). "

So QNAP have set themselves this standard and I expect them to stick to it. It is not therefore, 'unrealistic'. I would like to get a technical solution to my problem, I don't need a discussion on whether or not you think my expectations are valid.