Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

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UncleGurm
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Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

First time poster, long time lurker. Apologies if this is the wrong sub-forum, but here goes...

So I have a TS-451 which is running 16GB (2x8GB) of RAM, latest 4.x firmware (as of last week), and 4x4TB WD Blue drives in a RAID-5 config.

This NAS has been running flawlessly, reliably, and rock solid for months in this config (ever since I upgraded from mismatched 2TB drives to this 4x4 Blue config).

I was running well over 75% utilization, so I decided to upgrade to 6TB drives. WD60EFAX drives were ... well, all drives are pricey nowadays but they weren't bad so I grabbed 4.

Replaced them one at a time. No problems. Started with Drive 4, then 3, then 2. Each rebuilt overnight as expected in rebuild priority mode. Finally I replaced Drive 1, and that also went fine at the time (it may have taken a little longer, I wasn't paying attention, but the unit was performing properly for read operations during the rebuild).

So then I went to expand the array from 12->18TB, and that took... a while. Ok, not unexpected. Fine. But that's when things got bad. The NAS started running unbearably slow. The GUI became slow, file transfers were bouncing around in speed from full speed to 0 and everywhere in between.

Here's where I feel stupid - I should, of course, have STOPPED and rebooted the unit and maybe reverted the changes. But hey, I had most of the data backed up. I tried to do the final step - resizing the volume - and the NAS crashed.

After reboot/rebuild (took a session with a QNAP engineer just to get it to boot properly with the 6's in), I found that one of the drives was throwing media errors in the final outer %'s of the drive. Nice job, WD. Ok, that one is out for RMA.

So I took the 4x4's, flashed to the latest non-5 firmware, made a fresh array. Again, all seems well. There's minimal data on here, so let's try this again!

Started with Bay 1 this time. Put in a 6TB. No sweat. Went to Bay 2, put in a 6TB... rebuild took... well, like 30 minutes just to START rebuilding, which is WEIRD. And I started getting weird performance again. GUI was ok, but the throughput was vacillating from full speed (120MB/sec) to 0, and all over the place. Hmm. Ok, scratch that idea. Put the 4TB back in, let it start rebuilding - same problem. Ok, so it wasn't the second 6TB drive causing the problem.

It took 24 hours to rebuild, instead of the usual 8-9. With no data! Ouch.

So at this point the unit seems to be running mostly ok. Maybe not 100% as fast as expected, but ok with 6/4/4/4 in it and a 12TB RAID5. But I can't seem to get another drive in.

Next steps? At this point I'm waiting on WD to get me the other 6TB back, I could just put in all 4 6's. I want to run full media scans on all of them just to be sure there's no problem. But it seems - feels - as if the unit REALLY doesn't like these 6TB drives.

Other considerations - should I be pulling out 8GB of RAM? I know the official support matrix says the unit supports 8GB. It's run fine with 16 for a year or more, but I wonder if putting bigger drives in is taxing something and causing memory paging issues?

I can't imagine that the TS-451 simply isn't going to support a 4x6TB config. Do I need to start considering a new NAS? This one has been so good for so long that I hate to upgrade if I don't have to!
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dolbyman
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by dolbyman »

So you went from incompatible WD blue (desktop) to incompatible WED Red (SMR debacle) ...tell WD to switch your drives to WD RED Plus for free (they will do it according to countless reports)
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

How does one go about doing this? Just call them up and complain that the drives are SMR instead of CMR and I want the other kind? Will they demand receipts or... hmm. Do we think that the EFAX is simply incompatible? The QNAP tech who was helping me said they were on the compatibility list.
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

And before you ask, yes I know about the SMR/CMR thing, I figured it'd result in longer rebuild times not total system failure. Upon rechecking the compatibility list, the EFAX is on there with a note about reduced performance and updating firmware once they near capacity. Live and learn, I guess. I can return/resell the drives, I suppose, and save up for Plus models.
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dolbyman
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by dolbyman »

check reddit or twitter for examples where they contacted customer service and they offered to swap the SMR drives.

Also always depends on your geographical region (and the consumer protection laws in them)
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

Ok new plan. Rebuilt array onto functional-if-inefficient 4TB drives. Returning the 6TB ones, and will spend the extra $100 to upgrade them to plus models. Hopefully this will fix the performance problems.
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dolbyman
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by dolbyman »

they should work fine .. I just swapped 5x4TB WD RED CMR to 5x6TB WD RED Plus .. the rebuild went smooth and fast (7 hours per drive)
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

Thanks, I'll give that a shot!
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

Trying with WD60EFZX, and same thing - first drive rebuilt in 7 hours. Second drive is running half that speed or less, says rebuild will take 17 hours.
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dolbyman
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by dolbyman »

what is the resync priority ?

When I just did the swap over I tested it

Sync priority was 170MB\s
Service priority was 25MB\s
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

It's prioritizing resync. It's back up to 115MB/sec (best I can expect pulling data off the 4TB drives). I am THEORIZING that it's because the 4's are mismatched - only one of them is CMR, so they're going to perform badly when taxed. At least I hope that's it...
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dolbyman
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by dolbyman »

SMR issues are with writing only (afaik) .. so rebuild onto a CMR should be ok .. but oh well .. patience I guess
UncleGurm
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Re: Can't upgrade TS-451 to WD60EFAX

Post by UncleGurm »

So far so good. I've gotten all 4 disks in - the resync speed bounces around a bit but then jumps up to 125MB and finishes in 5-6 hours so that's great.

Right now it's rebuilding the expanded RAID group (~4hours), after that I'll have it expand the partition (another few hours, IIRC) and we will see.

Only complaint so far this time is that one (or several?) of the WD60EFZX drives has some loud-** random seek noise. Like WD Black levels. But the operational spin noise is nearly silent and they read nice and fast (range of 194MB/sec to 208MB/sec sequential, with commensurate random IOPS).
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