LS-QVL behaving strange

[deciBel]

Hi,

OK... Frustration overload...


I have the 4 bay Buffalo NAS Linkstation LS-QVL - (4 x 2 TB, in RAID 5, so aprox 5 TB in total). Its about 50-60% free space left.

First things first;

It started a few weeks ago, when I suddenly couldn't access the drives over the network. It wasn't found, and I got a pop-up error saying it wasn't accessable.

Then, one day, drive 3 indicated an error. (Flashing read light- as far as I remember). So I turned off the NAS server and left it off a few days.

Out of curiousity - I re-powered the NASserver to see if the fault disapeared, or reappeared again. Nothing happened for a long time.

It spent about 2 weeks in a "power-up seequence" (Flashing blue light).

It seemed to never stop flashing until yesterday, when the NAS suddenly made a repetative sound (the sound of a harddrive not able to initiate).
At the same time it indicated that there was an error with drive 1.

So.. While it was on, I pulled disc one out physcially, and back in, only to realise that the sound continued after the drive re-booted. So I waited 30 seconds.

I tried the next drive (nr 2), same thing,
then the third drive (nr 3), same thing,
then the fourth drive (nr 4), same thing, but the machine-biip'ing sound stopped. Only now - the disc (nr4) lights up a constant red LED light indicating a faulty drive....

At this moment - it lights up as constant blue light for power, and a constant red light on drive 4.


So  - Now - What should I do?


Please advice.


And a follow up question : If I get new drives, do it have to be equal size (2TB) or can I get bigger? (I understand that they cant be smaller...)