TS-109 eSATA Q-RAID 1 not syncing

[drwb]

My TS-109 Pro never gets past 0% when syncing my eSATA Seagate sT3500320AS drive. I have left it on for over 12 hours on several different attempts. I have re-formatted the external drive several times and re-started the sync process. Nothing seems to work. Here is my configuration information. Can you tell me what I need to do to get Q-RAID working?

Model name: TS-109 Pro
Firmware version: 2.0.4 Build 0324T
Operation System (OS): Factory Default (Whatever that is)
OS Language: English
Number of HDDs: 2
HDD model: Both are Seagate ST3500320AS SD15
HDD capacity: 500 GB
RAID configuration: Q-RAID 1 eSATA
Services enabled, e.g. Download Station, DDNS, FTP, NFS: MS Networking, Web File Manager, FTP, Multimedia, Download Station
External devices, e.g. USB printer, e-SATA drive: eSATA in Rosewill chassis
NAS connection speed/ MTU (found in Network Settings>TCP/IP page): 100 Mbps, MTU: 1500 Bytes

Thanks,
David Butts

[AndyChuo]

Hi Likkmm,

Would you be able to submit an online support form and let our customer support taking care of your problem?

Andy

[drwb]

Andy, I IM'd QNAP Support and worked with Fan. He checked my internal HD for errors and found none. He then recommended that I connect the external HD using USB Q-RAID 1 instead of eSATA which I did and started sync'ing. The sync operation took 35 hours, but for the first 10 hours or so, the sync status showed 0%. After about 10 hours the sync status started showing increasing % until the operation finished. Both drives are 500GB and the internal drive shows 476940MB/113276MB for Total/Free and the external shows 476940MB/112755.

Now, I have a couple of questions:
1. When the sync process starts, does it check the Free blocks (in this case 113276MB) first, showing a constant 0% while it is checking free blocks and only start showing increasing % when it starts syncing the blocks with valid data? If that is so, then maybe you should change the algorithm so that the % starts increasing with the very first block synced, with or without data, because this behavior caused me to think that I had a defective NAS. I have seen numerous other postings in these forums where other people were concerned by this long 0% state and maybe this would reduce your support calls/postings (assuming that is why it stays at 0% for so long, of course).

2. So now I have QRAID-1 working with the external HD connected via USB, can I "eject" the drive and re-attach it using eSATA without having to re-sync?

3. I have seen some postings in these forums about defective eSATA cables. Do you have a recommendation for a brand of cable that works well with the QNAP?

Thanks again,

[niwa2]

the free space on my external drive is also lower than on the internal drive. i don't kno why. but it is not really bothering me.
i don' know about 1. and 3. but 2. is a absolut YES. i have set up my external drive useing usb and it does not matter if i connect it to the usb or the eSATA port, the sync starts and finishes correctly.

[drwb]

Niwa2,

Yes, like you did, I set up my drive as USB Q-Raid 1, then sync'ed it. Afterwards, I could connect either usb or esata with having to re-sync.

I still don't know why the sync'ing process stays so long (10 hours at 0%) before I see the % begin to increase and take another 25 hours to complete sync'ing (35 hours total).

[niwa2]

i found the percentage to be a little inacurate on my setup too, it stays at 21% for quite some time.
as a litte estimation you can say that it needs about 1h to sync 10GB or 2.7MB/s.

[drwb]

Niwa2,
Your times are roughly the same as mine. I guess someday we will learn why the sync percentage hangs up for such a long time, but I am satisfied that my TS-109 is now working OK and am not going to pursue this issue any further.