Buffalo Forums

I have a Buffalo LinkStation LS441D (LS441DCF1) and my backups are now failing. I'm running the current version of the firmware 1.85-0.01, with the NAS setup as RAID5, using 4x4TB HDDs that are on the Buffalo compatibility list. The portable HDDs I'm using are Seagate 4TB units.

On the first backup attempt, it failed after several hours (backing up 1.3TB of data). This was indicated by the orange light on the front of the NAS (5 slow flashes followed by 4 quick ones). When I tried to access the NAS through my browser it wouldn't load at all. I got the initial grey screen but then nothing but a smaller popup with a spinning icon. I left it like that for about an hour and then decided to unplug the HDD. After this I was able to access the NAS and I could now see the status icon flashing and the message 'backup failed'. I tried backing up a second time and it failed again. After getting access again, I looked in the 'USB Drives' section and it said that the drive was unformatted. Okay, so maybe that happened as a result of unplugging it. I duly chose the format option, got the warning about losing all data, and let it proceed. That took 15-20 minutes. Not sure as I was doing other things.

I then ran the backup again, and once more it failed. Unplugged it, plugged it in, accessed it again and again it says unformatted. Again, maybe because I unplugged it. Formatted it again, but this time before running the backup one more time, I decided to check in the 'USB Drives' section and it still says its unformatted, which shouldn't be the case. Out of desperation, I attach the drive to another NAS and formatted it from there, and also checked that it is showing as formatted. Tried it again on the LS and it fails again. I now get another external drive and try that one, using the PSU and USB cable supplied with that one, and that too fails. Did the usual and reformatted it again on the other NAS. Ran another backup and I left that one to backup last night (BTW I never access the NAS when it's backing up) and this morning it's showing the flashing orange light. I try to access it through the browser but this time leave the browser tab open to see how long it takes to get the page to load. I gave up after two hours, closed the browser tab and disconnected the drive. Opened a new tab and can connect straight away.

Any suggestions as to what is happening? I've used two different PSUs and two different USB cables on two external drives and have used both USB connectors on the NAS. The NAS isn't being used when backing up and the external drives are working fine with another NAS. I've also rebooted the NAS between backup attempts. I can access the NAS from Windows Explorer and can see all my files, so I'm at a loss as to what is going on. RAID Scanning is run at the start of every month. External HDDs are formatted as EXT3 and have been since I first used them. Not sure if I've left anything out.