Author Topic: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)  (Read 14767 times)

noname

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #30 on: September 09, 2019, 03:00:24 PM »
Actually, I've found in my basement TeraStation Pro TS-1.0TGL/R5 and I would like to use it on macOS Catalina Beta... :D

noname

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #31 on: September 10, 2019, 03:02:18 PM »
So, I gave up on OpenTera, installed only latest firmware (1.12) from PC running Windows 7, and had TeraStation up and running. Then from macOS Catalina, since Nas Navigator wouldn't even start, I set up a static IP and using muCommander I had at least ftp server fully working, which is good enough for me. This is still pretty sweet machine, and I love it.

cyberjunkie

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #32 on: March 24, 2022, 01:54:10 PM »
To keep an interesting thread active, I am going to report on how this old NAS works with the latest Apple OS and hardware.
Just found an old HD-H0.6TGL/R5, with four 160GB drives and a horribly small array size (485GB!) and firmware version 2.80.
The network still had its old config, but I downloaded the last NAS Navigator 2 from Apple Store, run it from an old MacBook Pro unibody (Mojave OS), and had the NAS online in no time! :) It took a while to check the RAID5 array, but everything worked afterwards.
The next morning the NAS was not online anymore, so I restarted NAS Navigator and decided to choose a static address instead of using DHCP. The network share was visible and speed was good enough to play an HD movie from the network share.
I tried to launch the config utility from a Mac Mini M1 (Monterey, latest update), and Rosetta allowed to run the app without faults. I could access the share as guest and started copying the content of the array to a USB 3.0 drive attached to the Mac Mini. Throughput seems to be around 3.1/3.4 MB/sec. All seem to proceed smoothly so far (fingers crossed!).
I also have a Buffalo 1U rack mount NAS to bring back to life, but first I want to try to upgrade the cheaper/older one first.
I found very very few relevant info about HD-HTGL/R5 series machines online. The serial number is not recognised, using another one I found (belonging to the 1TB version) brought me to a download page with ultra old firmware, and to FAQs pages that mostly deal with completely different hardware!  >:(
I'm still left with all my questions:

1) Which is the biggest hard disk size compatible with HD-HTGL/R5 series? Any list of factory approved drives?

2) Which is the right procedure to exchange ALL FOUR drives at once to increase array size? Init files are copied to the the HDDs, so my best guess is to backup the content, undo the array, leave disk 1 as is and exchange the other three drives, format the three disks to get the init files written to them, reboot, exchange the first disk, reboot again and finally format the last disk and build the array. Anybody out there who tried the same procedure? I have some old IDE drives, but they are all quite small... but I have many SATA to IDE adapters lying around. I still have to open the unit so I have no idea if there is enough room for such adapters, and if they would be at all compatible. If there is a chance, well... I have four identical 500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drives, or four almost identical 2TB drives. Before even attempting to follow this route, it would be nice to know if there is any chance it could work.
Here is the kind of adapter I have. It's red colour, but almost identical:


3) I have seen posts online where the firmware version was reported as 3.25. The only two versions I found online are either the 1.2 or the 2.6. My NAS has 2.8 version. Any link to a newer one?

4) In case of disaster I would be happy to have the TFTP utility to copy the init files to the device. Any link to the specific Windows executable? I could use that under Parallels Desktop virtualisation...

Any further advice, link, etc, etc would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance
Ciao

Paolo
« Last Edit: March 24, 2022, 02:35:18 PM by cyberjunkie »

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #33 on: March 24, 2022, 09:54:17 PM »
Although the OS lives on the drives a lot of the early boot is from the onboard flash with these old powerpc devices. If you can get the firmware installer to run you can probably install starting with blank drives.

I used sata->ide adapters and 500gb drives with mine for several years. I would expect that 2tb drives would be the largest possible because of the type of partition table the device uses. I also suspect the onboard ide and/or sata-ide adapter would also have a 2tb limit.

It might also not like some modern drives based on how they report sector sizes/etc. You’d have to try them to find out for sure.

emilypurlell

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #34 on: March 24, 2022, 11:15:24 PM »
Thank you.

I have also found lots of bad advice on the internet, but this worked perfectly.

cyberjunkie

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #35 on: March 25, 2022, 06:21:14 AM »
Although the OS lives on the drives a lot of the early boot is from the onboard flash with these old powerpc devices. If you can get the firmware installer to run you can probably install starting with blank drives.

I used sata->ide adapters and 500gb drives with mine for several years. I would expect that 2tb drives would be the largest possible because of the type of partition table the device uses. I also suspect the onboard ide and/or sata-ide adapter would also have a 2tb limit.

It might also not like some modern drives based on how they report sector sizes/etc. You’d have to try them to find out for sure.

Your answer is very encouraging. I will try with the adapters. I was afraid that the mechanical build of the NAS wouldn't leave enough room. If new SATA drives could give problems... well, it shouldn't be an issue, as the most recent ones I have lying around are at least 8 years old! :) I also have a number of very fast SAS drives, a pity they are of no practical use for a dirty cheap home network project that should not include Windows machines (only Apple stuff, plus a few Android devices and a rarely used Chromebook). Whatever... I'm sure I have at least four identical Barracuda 500GB drives. I will give a try to those disks first.
Starting with blank drives seems to be a no go. I found a couple of old posts by people who attempted that and ended up with missing boot files. The solution was to inject two init files using a TFTP (Windows exe) specifically made for this kind of hardware. I tried to find the files on the Web but I couldn't. So I will try to take care, delete the array first, number the original drives with a marker, and replace with the new ones one at a time, formatting them before turning the machine off.

Two side issues that could possibly benefit from your vast knowledge:
1) Do you remember which was the latest firmware you found? I mistakenly reported mine as v2.80, but in reality it's 2.18.
2) Did you ever use your NAS with clients running recent versions of OS X? The NAS does not appear in "Network" as a Samba machine unless i first use NAS Navigator2 to access the share.

Thanks for your kind and informative reply

Paolo

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Re: TeraStation HD-H1.0TGL/R5 unable to be accessed by MAC OS X Lion (10.7)
« Reply #36 on: March 25, 2022, 12:42:23 PM »
Some notes:

The hardware in this device dates back to ~2006 with various bits like controller chips likely designed even earlier. Even an 8 year old drive is new from the device's point of view. There's not much to do except try and see what works.

With the adapters in place it's a very tight fit but it did work. I would imagine heat would be an issue so you probably want drives with similar/less power draw. Newer drives are likely more efficient so that shouldn't be too hard but it's something to think about.

The things you've read about TFTP/etc are specific to ARM based devices, this is an older PowerPC based device which has a completely different boot/recovery mechanism. This device will boot into a small bootrom that loads the kernel and initrd from flash. It then runs checks to see if a flag was set to force EM mode on next boot, then checks to see if it can find the OS boot volume, finally it checks some files to determine if the OS is in the expected state and then executes the OS init script. If any of those checks fail it goes to EM mode and waits for the firmware updater to connect so that you can reinstall/recover. This works fine with blank disks.

2.18 is the newest one I ever had, it appears to be the same as found here:
https://www.buffalo.jp/product/detail/software/hd-h1.0tgl_r5.html

I don't really have any OSX experience, I think i played with 10.5 on a laptop briefly many years ago.