Question WD NAS RAID 1 - - - failed controller chassis and also 1 drive ?

[Yoda1234]

Hello all and Happy New Year!


I am in distress and face an issue with my RAID system. I have been trying various troubleshooting steps / guides / forums and workarounds and vendor instructions but nothing worked.

In a nutshell. My RAID 1 failed.

Equipment / Setup:

• 1 x Western Digital My Cloud EX2 Ultra NAS (2 Drive bays)
• 2 x Western Digital 4TB drives (Red Edition)
• Configured in RAID 1 Format
• WD uses EXT4 Format

Problem:

• The actual WD NAS H/W device failed (WD support says its probably a controller or other component of the unit that needs to be fixed and hence they request to send the unit with the disks to them for repair). Cost estimation in the range of 100-500 Euro…….. Its EndOfSupport unit / no warranty.
• One of the WD Red drives has failed also completely. Basically, a dead PCB, even if I remove / replace the failed components on the PCB it could be something else as the drive does not spin at all. Tested in various methods including with multi-meter voltages on the diodes (D4 fails) and one on the R connectors fails also. (Have fixed in the past other drives with broken PCBs but this thing seems different issue.

Now only one drive works from the RAID 1 configuration and I cannot retract in a structured manner my data that are there. Movies, Videos, Pictures, Documents etc….

I am looking for a reliable way / tool to restore at least the Pictures and Videos & Documents. I've found a few tools find all the files although with random names that does not help at all. We are talking for over 200,000+ files that I want to restore (about 2TB from the 4TB).


Any advice much appreciated. Obviously buying an empty WD Ultra EX2 NAS enclosure is not efficient, haven’t found one less than 120 Euro (used). Should do the trick but I cannot spend now 120 + a new drive.


Main concern is to retrieve the most important files as mentioned on another NAS I have in RAID 10 format with 4 disks which was the plan from the start to migrate there as has more capacity and resilience.



What is the point of RAID 1? Shouldn’t it allow me to use the 1 drive that still works on another system as standalone and have my files intact? ……… Never ever again WD for NAS………..

What would you recommend?

Any advice much much appreciated !!!!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Obviously buying an empty WD Ultra EX2 NAS enclosure is not efficient, haven’t found one less than 120 Euro (used). Should do the trick but I cannot spend now 120 + a new drive.

That actually is easiest and most sensible option.
Other options will cost you much more.

And you'll need a new drive to store recovered data either way.

 

[Yoda1234]

Thank you for your reply SkyNetRising.

However due to a tight budget i am looking for a cheaper solution and also to through away the WD Ultra EX2 NAS enclosure. It is also an outdated model with limited support (if none) without app updates and slow. I want to upgrade in this step but need to restore the data.

I already have a NetGear 21400 and budgeting for a Synology thereafter.

Is there a tool where i could retrieve the data from the single drive with the actual labeled filenames and structure?

Kind Regards

 

[USAFRet]

This is why, even with (or especially with) the RAID...you absolutely need a known good backup, outside the RAID.

This software may be of assistance:
https://www.freeraidrecovery.com/?s=rd

 

[DSzymborski]

What is the point of RAID 1? Shouldn’t it allow me to use the 1 drive that still works on another system as standalone and have my files intact? ……… Never ever again WD for NAS………..

What would you recommend?

Any advice much much appreciated !!!!

RAID 1 and RAID 10, like all RAIDs (except RAID 0) exist for the same reason: data availability, not data protection.

The problem here appears to be a poorly chosen storage scheme. RAIDs are rarely useful on the consumer level.

 

[USAFRet]

What is the point of RAID 1? Shouldn’t it allow me to use the 1 drive that still works on another system as standalone and have my files intact?

Not if the RAID controller dies.

 

[thestryker]

The whole RAID controller dying part is one big thing people seem to overlook (not that I think RAID is good for most home users). Whatever controller created the array is what you need to recover an array, or at least an identical firmware structure (ex: over a decade ago when I was picking RAID controller I bought an Areca card because all of their cards that carried the same capability were compatible).

 

[Yoda1234]

Thank you all for your replies guys.

"thestryker" your response also seems very reasonable cause I've seen this with changing PCBs from dead drives where either capacitors or diodes die and have to replace them or even remove a diode just to read and recover the data. However with WD drives i always had to have exact same firmware and ROM cause otherwise it would not work correctly from the part of the PCB.

What would you all believe would be the optimum (and cost effective >= cheap and reliable) solution for a home network (2 x ESXi Labs, 1 x DAW Tower, 1 x Gaming Tower, 1 x Media Center/General PC and 2 x NAS-well 1 broken now...

Am exceeding over 50TB++++ data (Audio/Video/Pics/....) and will be adopting more space on a Cloud solution too. Can't have it all sync though there and need it locally as some files from the A/V side exceed sizes of 3-4 Gb per file...

Hence why i need them locally to process.

If not getting a used EX2 Ultra chassis to restore the data, is there any other option?


"DSzymborski" What is the difference or what would you recommend for having the data protection part and availability. Availability is obviously crucial but even more for me is the data protection part even if it means that would have to wait days/weeks to restore intact my data.

Why RAIDs are rarely useful on the consumer level? I am a net sec engineer but with a twist for Audio and Video editing. Hence I am not a regular user and consume quite some TB of space..



"USAFRet" does not mention RAID 1 at all and besides i only have one drive functioning from RAID 1 which had 2 drives. The broken one I am trying to fix the PCB now.

Also what do you mean with a "known good backup, outside the RAID"?


Thank you again for your valuable feedback!

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 1 and above are really only good for continued uptime, in the event of a physical drive fail.
Thats about it.

Considering if you were running a webserver, hosting a stores website. Downtime = lost sales.
A RAID 1 lets the server and site limp along until you can schedule actual downtime to replace the dead drive and rebuild the array.
If you, the consumer person, can withstand a whole hour or two of restore time, you don't really need the RAID 1. A real backup is a much better concept.

"known good backup, outside the RAID" refers to the practice of 3-2-1.
3 copies, on at least 2 different media, at least 1 offsite or otherwise unavailable.

Having all you data live on a single RAID volume, be it RAID 1, 5, whatever...is just as bad as having it live on a single drive.

It does nothing for all the other forms of data loss. Accidental deletion, corruption, malware, ransomware, 'oops, I formatted the wrong thing'.
The system and user sees but a single 'copy'. Delete something by mistake, and it is gone.

And as you are seeing, the RAID controller also has a say in your data security.

A real backup, you just replace the drive and recover the full drive Image to the new replacement.


And RAID needs a good backup behind it. And if you don't really need that uptime, you don't really need the RAID at all.

 

[thestryker]

What would you all believe would be the optimum (and cost effective >= cheap and reliable) solution for a home network (2 x ESXi Labs, 1 x DAW Tower, 1 x Gaming Tower, 1 x Media Center/General PC and 2 x NAS-well 1 broken now...

Am exceeding over 50TB++++ data (Audio/Video/Pics/....) and will be adopting more space on a Cloud solution too. Can't have it all sync though there and need it locally as some files from the A/V side exceed sizes of 3-4 Gb per file...

The reason to use RAID is to cover for drive failure and depending on level sometimes increase performance.

If you don't need either of these just using individual drives is the way to go.

If you're concerned with data integrity and drive failure a software based solution is typically going to be your best choice. These are usually going to be using ZFS or Btrfs and do a better job at maintaining integrity than hardware RAID. They do that at the cost of more overhead and performance won't always be faster than a single drive can provide.

If you want higher performance then generally I'd lean towards a RAID card from a good vendor who will be around should it fail and need replacing/repair (my old RAID 6 array (8x 4TB) is faster than my newer RAID-Z2 (5x18TB) at some things). RAID 10 and 6 are the only ones I'd consider using as a home user.

Anything mission critical should be backed up somewhere else easily accessible should you need it.

 

[Yoda1234]

Managed to get the WD control to work and restoring now the drives, or at least part of the data within, hoping for more than 70% fingers crossed.

Thank you all for your support.

I'll lazy-chain (Schedule daily backups the mandatory data from that WD NAS to another NAS) which should help my current state for future failures...

3rd location in the cloud is my next resolution once I can afford that.....