jollystomper
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2012
- Messages
- 6,772
The short version: I tried setting up 2-bay network attached storage (NAS) devices from 2 different manufacturers, but neither worked. I then did DIY build for the new NAS using the Openmediavault Linux distribution and all is well. Maybe I should have gone with more “established” NAS manufacturers like Synology or Buffalo, but I am enjoying the NAS I built.
The loooong version (perhaps best read while sipping a beverage of your choice
):
My 2 NAS servers are Netgear ReadyNAS models and are almost 15 years old. The Netgear hardware has been rock solid for me. I run a basic RAID1 (mirrored)configuration. However, Netgear has gotten out of the NAS business. No more firmware upgrades, which means the Linux version, network drive access protocols versions) and security will become an issue. The hardware (CPU/memory) and really no options to upgrade them.
So, seeing the more powerful platforms existing NAS units have, It was time to BTD and try out some of these 2-bay systems. I figured it would also be good “hands-on education” to keep my old mind sharp.
The adventure begins...
1. I started with a QNAP NAS (model TS-233), as it had good reviews (and was a PC Mag Editors Choice), and a good balance of features and price. It was ordered from Amazon, along with 2 Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives.
2. Its setup was simple. Install the drives, plug in LAN connection and power, turn on, locate the device on the network, access and follow initialization steps. So far good. I set up RAID1, and left it to sync overnight.
3. The next morning – all the lights on it are on and it looked normal – but, it was hung and could not be accessed. No ping response, no web access, QNAP software cannot locate it on the network. Reboot, everything was back to normal, the RAID synchronization continued.
4. In the evening – frozen again. But now, it would not turn off/reboot via its power switch. Unplugged it from power, waited a minute, and plugged it back in. The power switch now powered it up, but the LAN status and drives lights on the front did not come on. The LEDs where the LAN cable plugs in, as on the switch port to which it it attached, were both on, so there was a LAN signal. Repeatedly performed the unplug-wait-a-while-replug-power-on cycle, but that did not change anything.
5. I took the disks out and tested them on another system – the disk are working. Now, even without the disks, the NAS powered on but failed to initialize. IMHO, it is dead. So much for this one. Returned to Amazon (so happy for their easy return policy).
6. For round 2, I ordered another inexpensive NAS server with good reviews, the Terramaster F2-F212 (there was also a coupon making it $70 cheaper than the QNAP model). It is also supposed to be one of their newer models.
7. Setting it up started out easy again, in the same manner as the QNAP unit. However, this time – I decided to try their “TRAID” disk option instead of RAID1 – they claim it had the same function as RAID1 mirroring but also supported swapping in a larger drive and being able to use more of that drive than RAID1 (which allows storage size only to the size of the smallest drive). It started building the TRAID configuration.
8. Checked on it a few hours later - it was hung just like the QNAP NAS was– lights on, but nobody home, no responses to ping/web access/network scanning software. The unplug/plugin power on dance was performed to get it back online.
9. To track its network stability, I set up a ping monitor for it. Long story short, it was hanging and falling off the network about every 90 minutes-2 hours, regardless of what activity was (or was not) going on with the device. Its logs had not information. Disks were reported as healthy.
10. As another test, I removed the Seagate 4TB disks and reinitialized it with 2 1TB disks. This time it stayed on long enough to set up the TRAID mirror and format the filesystem A copy operation for about 50GB of files from another system to it was started.
11. Checked on it hours later, it was hung and off the network again – from the ping monitor it happened about 4 hours after the copy operation started. The device appeared normal with power, disk and LAN lights. The copy operation did not complete, only about 20 GB out of 50GB was copied. I did the unplug/plugin power on dance with it again, It came back online. All its log had was “the device was not shutdown properly”. Yeah, no kidding. It continued this cycle of staying up for 3-4 hours before hanging.
12. The Terramaster online support community was pretty much useless when I asked about this. Thinking that the TRAID might be the issue, I reinitialized the NAS and this time set up RAID1. That seemed to work. I set up a filesystem and ran a copy operation of about 30GB, and that worked. But… 16 hours later, the NAS hangs again. I bring it back online as before, and run another copy operation… and hour into it, it freezes again. AARGGH!
13. One last test… I returned the Seagate NAS drives and ordered Western Digital NAS drives, and installed them… but nothing changed, the device misbehaved just as it did with the Seagate drives.
Enough fun with this. I returned the Terramaster.
I take a break, go the driving range, and come to my senses. Since I am shutting down and consolidating some of my existing PC servers, I have unused hardware lying about. Why not just build a NAS server? I have always had a preference for building PC systems instead of buying them fully configured. I used an older motherboard - AMD AM3 slot CPU and DDR3 memory. I added an SSD drive for the operating system installation and used 2 WD NAS drives for RAID1 storage. Years ago I had played with the FreeNAS (now called TrueNAS) distribution. The current TrueNAS Scale distribution has a ton of function, but I decided for now to try Openmediavault, particularly since older MB/CPU/memory hardware is being used.
Finally, we have liftoff!
Openmediavault was a quick install, the RAID/filesystem/shared folder setup went smoothly, and the initial test - this time copying over 200GB of files - ran without any problems.
Maybe I just ran into a series of unfortunate bad luck with the NAS systems I tried, or there was just something very wrong I was doing, or this was my punishment for going with cheaper NAS models, or all of the above - but I have a new working NAS system, which is all that matters. It has been running for over a week now with no issues.
I might not stick with the Openmediavault platform, as my BTD ways might lead me into getting more modern hardware and trying out TrueNAS Scale. It has some some additional capabilities that, while not a requirement, seem like fun to try out and learn. In either case, I am going to stick with a DIY NAS for now. I like poking around “under the covers” of this technology, so this will be one more activity to keep me busy in retirement.
The loooong version (perhaps best read while sipping a beverage of your choice
):My 2 NAS servers are Netgear ReadyNAS models and are almost 15 years old. The Netgear hardware has been rock solid for me. I run a basic RAID1 (mirrored)configuration. However, Netgear has gotten out of the NAS business. No more firmware upgrades, which means the Linux version, network drive access protocols versions) and security will become an issue. The hardware (CPU/memory) and really no options to upgrade them.
So, seeing the more powerful platforms existing NAS units have, It was time to BTD and try out some of these 2-bay systems. I figured it would also be good “hands-on education” to keep my old mind sharp.
The adventure begins...
1. I started with a QNAP NAS (model TS-233), as it had good reviews (and was a PC Mag Editors Choice), and a good balance of features and price. It was ordered from Amazon, along with 2 Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives.
2. Its setup was simple. Install the drives, plug in LAN connection and power, turn on, locate the device on the network, access and follow initialization steps. So far good. I set up RAID1, and left it to sync overnight.
3. The next morning – all the lights on it are on and it looked normal – but, it was hung and could not be accessed. No ping response, no web access, QNAP software cannot locate it on the network. Reboot, everything was back to normal, the RAID synchronization continued.
4. In the evening – frozen again. But now, it would not turn off/reboot via its power switch. Unplugged it from power, waited a minute, and plugged it back in. The power switch now powered it up, but the LAN status and drives lights on the front did not come on. The LEDs where the LAN cable plugs in, as on the switch port to which it it attached, were both on, so there was a LAN signal. Repeatedly performed the unplug-wait-a-while-replug-power-on cycle, but that did not change anything.
5. I took the disks out and tested them on another system – the disk are working. Now, even without the disks, the NAS powered on but failed to initialize. IMHO, it is dead.
So much for this one. Returned to Amazon (so happy for their easy return policy).6. For round 2, I ordered another inexpensive NAS server with good reviews, the Terramaster F2-F212 (there was also a coupon making it $70 cheaper than the QNAP model). It is also supposed to be one of their newer models.
7. Setting it up started out easy again, in the same manner as the QNAP unit. However, this time – I decided to try their “TRAID” disk option instead of RAID1 – they claim it had the same function as RAID1 mirroring but also supported swapping in a larger drive and being able to use more of that drive than RAID1 (which allows storage size only to the size of the smallest drive). It started building the TRAID configuration.
8. Checked on it a few hours later - it was hung just like the QNAP NAS was– lights on, but nobody home, no responses to ping/web access/network scanning software
. The unplug/plugin power on dance was performed to get it back online.9. To track its network stability, I set up a ping monitor for it. Long story short, it was hanging and falling off the network about every 90 minutes-2 hours, regardless of what activity was (or was not) going on with the device. Its logs had not information. Disks were reported as healthy.
10. As another test, I removed the Seagate 4TB disks and reinitialized it with 2 1TB disks. This time it stayed on long enough to set up the TRAID mirror and format the filesystem A copy operation for about 50GB of files from another system to it was started.
11. Checked on it hours later, it was hung and off the network again – from the ping monitor it happened about 4 hours after the copy operation started. The device appeared normal with power, disk and LAN lights. The copy operation did not complete, only about 20 GB out of 50GB was copied. I did the unplug/plugin power on dance with it again, It came back online. All its log had was “the device was not shutdown properly”. Yeah, no kidding. It continued this cycle of staying up for 3-4 hours before hanging.
12. The Terramaster online support community was pretty much useless when I asked about this. Thinking that the TRAID might be the issue, I reinitialized the NAS and this time set up RAID1. That seemed to work. I set up a filesystem and ran a copy operation of about 30GB, and that worked. But… 16 hours later, the NAS hangs again. I bring it back online as before, and run another copy operation… and hour into it, it freezes again. AARGGH!
13. One last test… I returned the Seagate NAS drives and ordered Western Digital NAS drives, and installed them… but nothing changed, the device misbehaved just as it did with the Seagate drives.
Enough fun with this. I returned the Terramaster.
I take a break, go the driving range, and come to my senses. Since I am shutting down and consolidating some of my existing PC servers, I have unused hardware lying about. Why not just build a NAS server? I have always had a preference for building PC systems instead of buying them fully configured. I used an older motherboard - AMD AM3 slot CPU and DDR3 memory. I added an SSD drive for the operating system installation and used 2 WD NAS drives for RAID1 storage. Years ago I had played with the FreeNAS (now called TrueNAS) distribution. The current TrueNAS Scale distribution has a ton of function, but I decided for now to try Openmediavault, particularly since older MB/CPU/memory hardware is being used.
Finally, we have liftoff!
Openmediavault was a quick install, the RAID/filesystem/shared folder setup went smoothly, and the initial test - this time copying over 200GB of files - ran without any problems. Maybe I just ran into a series of unfortunate bad luck with the NAS systems I tried, or there was just something very wrong I was doing, or this was my punishment for going with cheaper NAS models, or all of the above - but I have a new working NAS system, which is all that matters. It has been running for over a week now with no issues.
I might not stick with the Openmediavault platform, as my BTD ways might lead me into getting more modern hardware and trying out TrueNAS Scale. It has some some additional capabilities that, while not a requirement, seem like fun to try out and learn. In either case, I am going to stick with a DIY NAS for now. I like poking around “under the covers” of this technology, so this will be one more activity to keep me busy in retirement.
