my 4TB Quad has gone belly-up, and I'm not getting much help from support - please help!

[szimbler]

   

I have a 4TB Quad, just a few months old now. It has failed, and it had all my photos and music on there. I bought a quad because I wanted redundancy and security for my data, but the first time something has gone wrong, the whole thing looks buggered, and Buffalo's only suggestion is to reformat all the drives, so losing all my data forever, and see if that works. If not then they'll send me a new unit!

 

I had it configured as a raid 5 (this was how it arrived).

 

They sent me one advance replacement drive because they thought that maybe drive 1 had failed. I replaced drive 1, reformated drive 1, but the web interface only recognises the 1 drive (1) and does not see any of the raid info from the other 3 drives.

 

So I guess my question is, should I follow their advice and begin formating all my drives? Or is there a way to recover my files from one of more of the drives before I start wiping them?

 

I am desperately putting hte clean formatted drive into other slots to see if the remaining three disks will suddenly say hello, but no luck this far.

 

Any help or advice appreciated.

 

Simon

 

 

Here is the text from the disk management screen:

 

Disk Management

 

 

RAID Array Information

RAID Array 1

Status

Not Configured

RAID Array 2

Status

Not Configured

 

Disk Information

Disk 1

Status

Standard Mode

Unit Name

WD10EADS-00L5B1

Total Capacity

976,762,584 kbytes (931.51 GB)

File FormatXFS

Disk 2

Status

Standard Mode

Unit Name

HDT721010SLA360

Total Capacity 976,762,584 kbytes (931.51 GB)

File Format Not Available

Disk 3

Status

Standard Mode

Unit Name

HDT721010SLA360

Total Capacity

976,762,584 kbytes (931.51 GB)

File Format

Not Available

Disk 4

Status

Standard Mode

Unit Name

HDT721010SLA360

Total Capacity

976,762,584 kbytes (931.51 GB)

File Format

Not Available

USB Disk Information

USB Disk 1

Status

Not Detected

USB Disk 2

Status

Not Detected

[PCPiranha]

"I have a 4TB Quad, just a few months old now. It has failed, and it had all my photos and music on there. I bought a quad because I wanted redundancy and security for my data, but the first time something has gone wrong, the whole thing looks buggered, and Buffalo's only suggestion is to reformat all the drives, so losing all my data forever, and see if that works. If not then they'll send me a new unit!"

 

Please understand that having a good backup solution is the best way to keep your data safe.

 

"They sent me one advance replacement drive because they thought that maybe drive 1 had failed. I replaced drive 1, reformated drive 1, but the web interface only recognises the 1 drive (1) and does not see any of the raid info from the other 3 drives."

 

What do you mean you reformatted the drive?  You should have just needed to restructure it back into the array..

 

"So I guess my question is, should I follow their advice and begin formating all my drives? Or is there a way to recover my files from one of more of the drives before I start wiping them?"

 

If it is showing the drives as unformatted then the only option to get the unit up and running is to format it.  You can attempt data recovery for possible corruption.

[szimbler]

   

Well, I thought that spending a stack of cash on a 4TB raid system was a good backup solution, otherwise I would have bought two single drive units and had them backing up from on to the other and not bothered with the whole additional expense of a RAID solution.

 

While I was on the phone to support they asked me to reformat the drive they had just sent to me as otherwise it would not appear in the web interface. The array was not visible from the webinterface, though quite why not we can't be sure.

 

Isn't it a little odd that all three remaining drives are "unformatted" when they were perfectly OK before? Doesn't this suggest some other problem here? What do you mean by "You can attempt data recovery for possible corruption."?

[PCPiranha]

"Well, I thought that spending a stack of cash on a 4TB raid system was a good backup solution, otherwise I would have bought two single drive units and had them backing up from on to the other and not bothered with the whole additional expense of a RAID solution."

 

This is a common misconception.  RAID is protection against single hard rive failure.  It is NOT a backup solution.

 

"While I was on the phone to support they asked me to reformat the drive they had just sent to me as otherwise it would not appear in the web interface. The array was not visible from the webinterface, though quite why not we can't be sure"

 

Did you swap the harddrives from the old unit to the replacement?  If so that would be your problem as you cannot swap all four drives at once and expect that to work..  Not saying you did this, Im just curious.

 

"Isn't it a little odd that all three remaining drives are "unformatted" when they were perfectly OK before? Doesn't this suggest some other problem here?"

 

At what point in time were they perfectly ok?

 

"What do you mean by "You can attempt data recovery for possible corruption."?"

 

If the drives are suddenly showing as unformatted I would assume there has been some file corruption.  If the data is that important then a data recovery specialist might be a good idea.

 

[szimbler]

   

They only send a single replacemnt drive, not the whole unit. They assumed that drive 1 had failed, but this seems not to be the case.If I had a new unit, could I move the HD's across unto that new unit and potentially get my data back?

 

I get your point about RAID now, but you;re right, I didn't understand this at the time. Howeverm I didn't realise that the unit could fail in such a way as to take out all my data in one go. That's that bit that really stings. I am 90% sure that 90% of the people who buy one of these Quads buys one believing their data will be safer than it was before. In fact, their data is less safe (or at least more vunerable) than it was before because one failure can take out ALL their data. The way I was set up before, with my data distributed across several PC HD's, if one HD failed, it only took that data. Now with one failure (as yet unidentified) ALL my data may be lost.

 

The unit was perfectly OK up until the point when it wasn't OK any more! Then nothing!

 

I know it's hard to put a value on precious photos etc, but the reality is I don't have 100's of euros to spend here in Italy on a data recovery bureau. I wish I did.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Simon

[DumbTechDude]

Good point on RAID. 

 

There is a huge misconception with people buying RAID systems thinking it is a backup solution.  It is not.  What's also interesting is that, their RAID solution is not protected with any power management unit like a UPS with AVR.  I see this ALL THE TIME, actually ALL THE TIME.  People spend so much money on Synology, ReadyNAS or Terastations and plug them directy into the wall socket -- what?!?  (edited by admin) You take your chances if you're lucky.  So, the lonely RAID system is left to fend for itself against voltage irregularities (which do happen from time to time).  When your RAID dies, the data will get corrupted to a point where you need a data recovery specialist who knows and deals in RAID to get your precious data back -- lots of money.   If you want RAID, get 2 RAID systems plus a few external USB or eSATA drives as your mirror drives all attached to a good solid UPS system with AVR.  A smart NAS system will have a UPS function that detects power failure and initiate an automatic shutdown!  My Synology server does this.  We have a Flexnet drive to flank the Synology as an external USB drive as well as a second tier network NAS in the event the Synology fails, which haven't yet. 

 

If you want a backup system, consider 3 tier backup plan (NAS, Network off-site backup/wireless Flexnet and rotating external USB drives).  Most people don't need RAID NAS unless you have a Gigabit network and a download/upload bandwidth of say 20Mbps/2Mbps minimum!  However, people need to have the coolest thing in their computer collection and RAID is the thing now. 

 

I'm not downing RAID at all.  RAID has its place for speed and redundancy, but is not a total backup solution.

 

[davo]

   

DumbTechDude wrote:

Good point on RAID. 

 

There is a huge misconception with people buying RAID systems thinking it is a backup solution.  It is not.  What's also interesting is that, their RAID solution is not protected with any power management unit like a UPS with AVR.  I see this ALL THE TIME, actually ALL THE TIME.  People spend so much money on Synology, ReadyNAS or Terastations and plug them directy into the wall socket -- what?!?  It's like having sex with a prostitute without wearing rubber.  You take your chances if you're lucky.  So, the lonely RAID system is left to fend for itself against voltage irregularities (which do happen from time to time).  When your RAID dies, the data will get corrupted to a point where you need a data recovery specialist who knows and deals in RAID to get your precious data back -- lots of money.   If you want RAID, get 2 RAID systems plus a few external USB or eSATA drives as your mirror drives all attached to a good solid UPS system with AVR.  A smart NAS system will have a UPS function that detects power failure and initiate an automatic shutdown!  My Synology server does this.  We have a Flexnet drive to flank the Synology as an external USB drive as well as a second tier network NAS in the event the Synology fails, which haven't yet. 

 

If you want a backup system, consider 3 tier backup plan (NAS, Network off-site backup/wireless Flexnet and rotating external USB drives).  Most people don't need RAID NAS unless you have a Gigabit network and a download/upload bandwidth of say 20Mbps/2Mbps minimum!  However, people need to have the coolest thing in their computer collection and RAID is the thing now. 

 

I'm not downing RAID at all.  RAID has its place for speed and redundancy, but is not a total backup solution.

 

 

Well said, agree 100%!

[szimbler]

   

Of course, from personal experience, I have to agree with you all completely. But let me tell you. While I was doing my research on Amazon and on Buffalo sites, this is definitely NOT made clear. Quite the opposite. These units are sold with both storage and backup in mind, specifically targeting idiots like me looking for somewhere safer to store all their photos, music and films.

 

And yes, I also had my quad plugged via a surge protector into the wall, so I'm an idiot in that respect too. But you know what, if I had ever been told, if any of the sales material even hinted that I should always protect my raid device with a UPS, then I would have done something about it.

[DumbTechDude]

   

I would agree with you completely that there isn't a whole lot of information from Amazon and any networking sites like Buffalo, Synology, Netgear, Cisco, Dlink, HP, Acer and the like  telling you what you need and should have when you buy a server.  It's more of a trial and error thing on your part unless you know someone who has knowledge about IT, works in IT and have a good working experience and knowledge about networking in general.  But then, do you think people who have this knowledge are going to be dispensing them free of charge, or at minimum wage?  Some IT guys and gals make better wages than people working at Wal-Mart or Bestbuy or even Amazon.  It's all relative.  Sometimes, people on Craigslist advertise themselves as IT guy or gal for hire and you might try that route.  They would advise, buy and setup your networking solution based on your needs.  Unfortunately though and I have found, some people on the list may be just as clueless as you are, so there's really no foolproof way of knowing if you bought enough and you may need more.  Judging from your case, you may need more than just a Quad Station.  You need a UPS with AVR and several hard drives for mirroring and this is not all too uncommon either. 

 

Hope this helps.

[CB3Dot]

   

I had 2.8 TB of data on my Buffalo LinkStation.  Software, documentation, photos, backups from workstations and servers at my site.  I went out and purchased two  2TB Seagate hard drives to serve as backup for the LinkStation RAID5 set.  I successfully formatted Seagate #1, attached to the back side of the case, and added several folders.  Everything went well.  I formatted Seagate #2 and the system hung.  I powered down the unit, powered down and removed the two Seagate drives, replaced and powered up the Seagate drives and restarted the LinkStation.  Went into Device manager and Seagate #2 showed that it had been formatted.  I was able to go to my workstation Windows Explorer and add folders to the two Seagate drives. I then  noted that the share mapping that I had for the RAID was not being resolved.  I returned to LinkStation  and noted that my raid showed 2.771 GB storage, percent used 0.0%.  Everything GONE!  I made the Call to Buffalo and was told they had never heard of one external formatting of an external driver triggering the formatting of the RAID set.  They said, "You did have full backups, didn't you?"  I replied that I was in the process of implementing backups to backups.  Looooong silence on both ends. 

They suggested a data recovery source.  My experience in the past with clients that needed this type of service, showed costs generally beginning at $2000 - $3000 with assurance that the total cost, if they succeeded in the restoration would not exceed $11,000 - #13,000.  It generally goes to the highest estimated range.  In one case, a client said, "Well, that is the end of my business.  I can't recover.”  I took the HD into my lab and using old DOS Chkdsk and some other DOS tools, worked with the corrupted file system and the related filexxx.chk files was able to restore all his critical data, including rebuilding all the folder structure.  This is not a job you do without parental supervision!  I'm working on restoring my files now.  In the above instance I had a single 80GB hard drive.  Today I have a RAID5.  I'll report back.

[tsammyc]

   

I too have a Quad for my home network of about 6 machines, which I got at a great discount about 6 months ago. However, I've had no significant problems with it. Reading all the horror stories on Raid 5 and the difficulty in recovering striped arrays, I've decided to stick to Raid 1. On a 4TB Quad, you can have two 1TB Raid 1 arrays on different shares having 2TB of mirrored data. The advantage of having Raid 1 arrays on unreliable hardware is that it is far easier to recover since each mirrored disk has a full set of data. If the NAS crashes, you can stick any of the disks into a PC and read off the data without getting a raid box and UFS explorer. NAS are fragile devices, not just Buffalo's. If you read the Synology, Qnap forums etc, there are tons of people everywhere trying to recover their data from crashed NAS'.

 

I also keep a spare single 500MB drive just as a "boot drive" for the Quad, which allows me to take out all four 1TB drives and boot off a single drive. This allows me to diagnose hardware problems on the Quad without worrying about whether one of the RAID disks is corrupt. Further more since you have two RAID arrays, if something goes wrong, you can boot off the spare drive in Slot #1 and put each one of the two RAID 1 arrays in Slots #3 and #4 to see if they are running properly. So if one of the two Raid 1 arrays gets corrupted, the other one might be unscathed.

 

I have an APC UPS that shuts down the Quad on power failure. It cost just $60 so its just silly not to have one. I also use the Buffalo backup to copy the most important directories to a USB drive once a week. I favour notebook drives as they are very robust, low power and don't require external power. The USB drive is connected all the time and once a month or so I swap in another one just to have a 2nd backup.

 

I think the most important thing that I do is to have the Quad automatically shut down for a few hours at night and then start back up in the morning. I find that many operating systems tend to corrupt themselves the longer that they remain running. A small memory leak in the kernel over a few days can eventually cause a catastrophic failure and disk corruption. So having it shut down and restart once a day can keep things running smoothly. My Quad does an unwanted shut down every 60-90 days or so but I think its heat related when the ambient temperature passes 100F. I also notice a lot of dust clogging the intake holes on the front after its been running for a few months. Hope this helps those trying to run a reliable and secure NAS

[DumbTechDude]

   

There is always a place for a 4 drive RAID 5 or 10 (1+0) system as part of the backup solution.  Those you read on the Syn or Qnap forum are really people who think they are storage experts but really have no clue about RAID functionality.  A rule of thumb I used to tell people is this, consider RAID only if you need storage space larger than the largest single drive you can buy now, which is 2TB.  If your needs don't exceed 2TB, stick with 2 individual drives.  There are a few downsides to RAID5, namely you need to make sure you keep about an 80% max level or you are going to see problems.  Another problem with RAID 1 is that, the MTBF of both drives are the same as you are required to run both of them together at the same time, writing data at the same time which means both drives suffer a similar wear and tear issue.  If 4 are on, then you're looking at premature death of all 4 of them moving forward.  Which is why RAID is called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (note the term Inexpensive).  Problem is, loosing data is expensive!!  One of the benefits of doing RAID 1 or 5 is reduced or no downtime.  You probably see the countless Youtube clips showing people playing off a video on the screen and then pulling out drives without interrupting the movie.  You get a lot of ohhs and ahhs in trade shows and this should not be neglected as a benefit.  If you need this benefit, then RAID is beneficial to you.  If you can live with a few minutes or hours of downtime while switching to a backup drive, then the advantage of RAID starts to diminish.  In fact, it plays against you when things go wrong.  Some people need a lot of storage, but unlike you're a professional photographer shooting a D3X RAW file or a videographer shooting a RED camera, I really don't see a point having RAID at all.  The only other selling point is the lazy man automatic backup.  RAID literally does the copying for you and if this is what you think you are being protected against data loss, YOU NEED to rethink your backup strategy.

 

Which is why Back Up software are still selling well.