Got "Drive failed in Bay 3" message via email

My Cloud OS 5 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud Pro Series
1

Hi
This morning I got following message for my PR4100:

“Drive failed in Bay 3. Replace the failed drive.”

Here is my question:

  1. My PR4100 has 4 Bays, Where is the Bay 3? Is it third Bay count from left slot?
  2. Now PR4100 is already power down, could I replace new HD on Bay 3, and power on will be automatically fix this issue?
  3. So far it has 2x1.5TB and 2x2TB, and I think broken HD is 1.5T on Bay 3, could put new 4TB on Bay3?
  4. Is all HD must be same speed? In another word could I mixed with 7200 and 5400RPM devices?

I’ll be appreciated for your help.

2

What kind of raid setup do you have?

Default for a 4-bay NAS is a single Raid 5 volume (3 drives worth of data stripped across 4 drives). For this to work as intended; drives should be the same size. If you have 2x1.5 and 2x2tb; that tells me the volume capacity is (3x1.5=) 4.5TB. (i.e. it treats the 2tb drives as 1.5tb).

If you toss in a 4tb drive. . .it will treat the drive as a replacement 1.5TB drive.

If you replace ALL the drives, ONE BY ONE, then at the end you will still have a 4.5tb volume. HOWEVER. . .with all the drives being larger; you can THEN do a “raid expand”, which will (magically) redesignate the volume as a (3 x 4tb) = 12tb volume.

I don’t think the NAS cares if you have 5400rpm vs 7200rpm drives. Just don’t by WD Red drives (They tend to be SMR). Stick with WD Red Pro and WD Red Plus (These are proper CMR drives)

3

Hi,

I really appreciate for your reply. It uses RAID 5 , and it reported that the Bay 3 was failed.
A reason why I’m thinking of putting bigger 4TB, because in the future it’s eventually replaced with all 4TB so that total capacity can be increased. Until then, I understood that the usable size should be restricted as 1.5TBx3~= 4.5TB as you mentioned :slight_smile:

Could you please explain me more about your following comments?

“I don’t think the NAS cares if you have 5400rpm vs 7200rpm drives. Just don’t by WD Red drives (They tend to be SMR). Stick with WD Red Pro and WD Red Plus (These are proper CMR drives)”

So far all installed HD are 7200rpm, and their bland are different; HITACHI and Seagate …
I’m thinking of purchasing WD Red Plus (4TB, 7200rpm). What do you think? Shouldn’t put WD Red Plus?

One last question. The system was turned off I think because of Raid5 system. Should I turn on before insert new HD or should insert HD before turn on the power?

Thanks so much.

4

7200 rpm drives should be fine (although; I thought only Red Pro was 7200rpm).

SMR drives have been controversial, because it was introduced as a stealth “downgrade” into the product line. Quite the hub-bub. Google “SMR vs CMR”. I think that all SMR drives are 5400rpm.

I don’t think the NAS cares if you mix and match brands or speeds.

Look at the instructions for drive swaps for the answer of “Hot swap or cold swap”

5

So sorry for being late to reply. The issue was resolved.