PR4100 - Consistent RAID failure notice for Drive 1 only

My Cloud OS 5 My Cloud PR
1

I have a PR4100 that has been working great for more than a year. I originally loaded it with four 6TB WD Red drives in a RAID 5 array and never had a single issue. Recently I’ve needed more storage space (I’m a photographer) so I went through the bult-in upgrade process. I replaced the 6TB drives with WD Red 14TB drives. The process involves replacing each drive, one at a time, and then expanding the RAID array.

This seemed to have worked perfectly.

A few weeks later I came home to see the Drive 1 LED was red and the RAID showed a warning that Drive 1 had failed. As I was doing troubleshooting, I rebooted the NAS and then everything showed as fine. The LED was back to blue, and it continued to work perfectly for several more weeks. Then I came home several weeks later to see the exact same issue. The RAID reported that Drive 1 had failed, yet I could still access everything, and the logs and RAID warning gave me no other information.

I replaced that drive under WD warranty. They shipped me a brand new WD Red 14TB drive. I replaced the drive on the NAS. It then ran fine for several weeks.

Yesterday I came home to the exact same issue again. So now I realize the issue is not the drives but rather the PR4100.

Searching here and WD support I don’t see anything similar. And of course, this could be from my own lack of imagination with search combinations.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any ideas for additional troubleshooting?

I opened a support ticket with WD and I’m waiting for their response.

I have thought about blowing up the RAID array, re-arranging the drives and resetting everything to factory defaults. Of course, I don’t like the idea of risking the loss of all this data (which is backed up to an identical PR4100). But these two are my only backup solutions.

I’m open to any/all suggestions. Thanks in advance.

EDITED…

I’ve run the Quick Test and it reported zero issues.

I’m currently running the Full System Test and its still running after more than 24 hours. I’ll report back if that test shows any issues.

1 Like
2

Full Disk Test is now complete and it shows four disks passed. Full System Test shows no issues.

I’m really at my wits end. What other troubleshooting can I try?

Again, thanks.

1 Like
3

Rebuilding raid one disk at a time make for a LOT of disk use.

and
I would just replace any disk unit that has the red light

done that many time but most times I can use the old disk in a computer system ( with better cooling)
after trying a re-format and complete sector test off line test.

I change raid size ( adding 4 larger disks ) via a backup and restore to prevent all the raid times and extra heat that the disk drives need for 4 raid rebuild cycles.

4

I have a WD EX2 Ultra fitted with 2 Ironwolf Pro 8TB Drives. Originally it was set up for RAID 0 but then I got the red light on Drive 1. It did go off after a reboot but then came back a day or two later. I decided to switch to RAID 1 for safety and after doing so I RMA’d the hard drive back to Seagate. I fitted the replacement drive when it arrived and rebuilt the RAID (Yawn) and it worked fine for a week and then bingo - the red light came back on Drive 1. Again it goes away after a reboot.

Now I’m pretty sure the drive is OK and I think it must be a glitch with the WD’s firmware. Everything is backed up and it’s only media for personal use anyhow.

I have chatted with another WD NAS owner who has a similar issue and who decided to just run with the red light as he says it goes out eventually.

5

Seems like the WD NAS devices can be a little picky about drives. I wouldn’t consider anything but WD Red drives and I had a reason which I don’t recall but I settled on the Red plus. Over the years I have had Red, Red Pro and Red Plus and settled on the Plus. The WD O/S is very interactive with the RAID firmware on the Hard Drives which is why I would shy away from Seagate’s offerings, just my opinion but based on mine and others past experiences. I did bugger up the O/S 3 once and had to reflash the O/S, no easy feat and it was a result of playing mix or match drives. The flash and a very long painful rebuilding, to restore the box to being happy once again. It’s not the sort of thing you would care to do. Just as a general rule for all, any NAS is not going to be as universally acceptable of any hard drive that you can plug in like most computer systems. For reliabilities sake stick to the manufacturer’s guidelines and we won’t be seeing so many sad faces in the community forum.

1 Like
6

Thanks for this - I’m still waiting for WD support to get back to me. The NAS is working fine at the moment, I’ve turned drive sleep off for the time being to see if that helps.

I could consider changing drives or the enclosure itself if the problem persists. I’d probably go Synology if I chose the latter.

Thanks again.

1 Like
7

Synology is the way to go post WD. My belief is WD makes excellent drives. All my original drives are in still running just fine in my PR 4100. But I believe WD should get out of the NAS infrastructure business. Synology makes a far better machine and GUI interface is much cleaner and more updated than WD. WD is still using the same GUI interface from OS3 even though I’m updated and running OS5, which initially was a disaster. Seems it has gotten better as WD continues to crisis issue updates and patches. But I would never buy WD NAS again.