NASLite Network Attached Storage

NASLite-2 is a brilliant product and I love it - most of the time.
The bit that really annoys me is the extremely lengthy and time consuming filesystem checks.

I understand the reason for having them, but I would like to suggest that in the next update to NASLite-2 HDD, there be an option in the admin menus to disable the disk checking. This would be at the users own risk, and I acknowledge that, but it is such a pain having to wait while these checks take place. It took 40 minutes to check just ONE of the 500GB drives in the server when I booted it up today - there was no unclean dismount - I shut the server off using the admin menu last night, then today when I booted it up, it took it upon itself to perform a disk check.

Ask anyone: "It's gonna take about 45 minutes to check each and every disk in the server", and watch them baulk at that time factor...

As I say: NASLite-2 is a great product, and I like it a-lot, but the disk checking is such a pain in the backside - the TIME it takes to do the checks - that there are more then a few swear words going on about how long this all takes - during which, the server is totally inaccessable, so no media can be accessed, no files can be worked with, no MP3's can be played, no videos played.


This is not really satisfactory for a server, which you want up and running again ASAFP - even if there HAS been an unclean dismount of the filesystem.

Would Sever Elements be prepared to add a "Disable filesystem checks on this server" item to the admin menus?

You do realize that file servers in the real world are almost always on an UPS and are only brought down for scheduled maintainence? They are NEVER brought down nightly and in the event that they are brought down by some unfortunate accident or failure they generaly take a fair amount of time to come back on line. The exception to this are hardware based RAID controllers which run the checks in the back ground and export the FS in a degraded capacity until said checks are completed. This can take hours some times.

Mike

Really?

I always thought that servers placed a great deal(if not the be-all-and-end-all) of importance to getting back up and running again???

Still, in the business world this may well be the case, but in a home NAS, I still think it is vital that the system be back up and running again without this kind of delay.

turn it off using a linux disc or extend the time between disc checks - i think it is set at 31 at the moment [or some such figure]

on a disc you are adding to this may be ok - but why not 15 or 100 if you are going to have a problem is the number relevant?

on a disc that is full and you are just reading from surely it is of little imortance? - honestly dont know??

The reason for the check of the FS after a disorderly shut down is to return the FS to a consistent state and not damage data on the drive. If you are good with the odd corrupted file or whole disk then.....

Personally, I can wait a bit for the piece of mind that the FSCK brings.

Mike

Well, I suppose I could make the disk read-only, but it is far more flexible if you can leave the disk read-write, so that I can transfer more files to that disk later on. Setting the disk to RO(read-only) would get me around this problem, would it?

Don't misunderstand - I do realize the importance of the check, it's the TIME factor that is currently MY ONLY annoyance with NASLite-2. The system in general is a fantastic bit of kit.

QUESTION: WHY do the checks take that long, when under Windoze(XP or Vista), even with chkdsk /f were it does a full check and looks at the indexes etc, it does not take 40 minutes per 500GB drive. I have another machine with XP and a 500GB drive in it, and as an experiment, I forced an OFF condition without shutting down XP normally, then rebooted to command-prompt only, and ran a chkdsk /f and it took 13 minutes 52 seconds to check the filesystem, check the indexes and say everything was OK. This drive is about 75% full.

So again: How come the file checks take so long in the Linux-based NASLite-2?