NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi guys !!
I set-up this configuration about six months ago just like this:
(1) HP Microserver with 2 GB of ECC-DDR3 booting NASLite-M2 x64 v.1.64 from a Memory Card which is attached to onboard internal SATA Port through an IDE-to-SATA Converter Board : this drive is for Configuration and Booting only and works very well
(2) two internal 2TB (each) SATA II WD drives (no RAID) working well (Disk 1 & Disk 2)
(3) one external 2TB USB 2.0 WD drive (Disk 3), which is ... or was ... MIRROR of Disk 1 (this is Disk 3 and its content is backed up from Disk 1)

Everything went fine until two weeks ago when I started NAS and I found in NASLite-M2 initial setup that Disk 3 (the USB drive) failed !!
So I went in NASLIte menu and reformatted the USB drive : the result was well and I set-up it again as MIRROR of Disk 1 ... everything went OK and the system began to reconstruct this Mirror again, I used it for one day and everything went well.
I usually switch off NAS every night so when I switched NAS on next day ... again USB Disk 3 < FAIL > message !!
Any ideas ??

Best regards - Migi.

I'd say that the USB drive is too slow to respond at boot. I'm assuming that you are powering the drive at the same time as the server. Try powering the USB enclosure prior to powering the server in order to allow the drive to spin-up, and be ready when the server boots.

If the above fails, then there is a chance that you have bad USB cabling or possibly a failing drive.

Hope that helps.

The USB drive has always power on as it has its own internal low-power policy, so I think that it spins down after some time ... in the other ways it worked perfectly for five months at least before those failures.
Which kind of tests may I perform to extabilish if the drive could be faulty ??

Best regards - Migi.

i would take it out of the usb enclosure and test it as a 'normal' drive - if it works fine then you are looking at the usb enclosure, cable or its power supply - if it continues to fail then it is the drive - that starts to narrow down the problem

Hi tony a,
thank you for the answer but, before doing what you suggested to me (I already thought to act just like this), I wanted to do my last USB Disk-3 (NASLIte) reformat to add one more information to my/our background.
So :
(1) again - reformat done OK
(2) NASLite restart drive is OK
(3) I used USB Disk-3 for three days to normal copy or backup operation and it was OK
(4) then I set it up as MIRROR of Disk-1 at 11 A.M. (I noticed it was really Mirroring Disk-1)
(5) I switched NAS off at 11 P.M.
(6) I restarded NAS this morning and - again - Disk-3 < FAIL >

It seems a mirroring related problem and not a USB disk related problem.

I think it's really strange, isn't it ??

Migi.

Hi Migi

Did you switch OFF the NAS during step 3 ? If you did and all worked OK, then it is the USB "hardware" (or the hard drive settings itself) putting the drive to sleep and the drive not waking up rapidly enough.

When you use the drive regularly, it doesn't have time to go to sleep and thus no waking up problem. If you use it only for mirror, then it goes to sleep and doesn't wake up fast enough when mirror needs the drive.

If you did NOT turn off the NAS during step 3, then you can't be sure if it is a slow start up problem (disk didn't start when NL was starting) or slow wake up problem.

Where exactly do you see the Disk 3 fail message ?

Robby

In the end it was only a faulty WD 2 TB USB 2.0 drive !!!

it was an interesting to read...,it may be a helpful info for future trouble shooting to my unit..










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