N7700 Problems with 1.5TB Seagate

[mbusse]

Interesting thread that I want to throw my .02 into.

I myself have a shiny new N7700 sitting in front of me awaiting it's 7, 1.5TB Seagate companions due to arrive tomorrow. Because of this, I am quite interested in getting these drives to work in the N7700. Now I want to point out a couple things, a competing NAS manufacturer has declared full support for these 1.5TB drives, also, persistence pays off when working with manufacturers, just look at all the noise generated around the freezing of the 1.5TB drives. We now have a fix from Seagate and it has resolved the problem. I think the folks that own the N7700 and the 1.5TB drives are just looking for either Thecus or Seagate or both to come up with a fix, which I am going to look into my crystal ball and predict will come in short order.

Those of us spending a cool 1k on the N7700 are not looking to buy legacy 1TB drives, let's face it even the 1.5TB will become legacy in 6 months or less. We are looking to squeeze the most storage capacity as possible for our dollar. For the 20.00 per drive difference, there was no way I was going to buy 1TB drives vs. 1.5TB. There are several conflicting reports on the 1.5TB and the N7700, some say it works others say it does not, even some large resellers are reporting this drive works. I think this is the reason for all the questions. I do understand that this drive in not on the Thecus supported list, but am guessing with enough customers wanting it, it will in due time. Let's face it, consumers drive product support, if enough customers of both of these products complain, something WILL happen. If there is not much noise, nothing will happen, this is nothing new. I can bet you will see many more of us joining this forum in the same boat. Let's face it, getting these 2 pieces of hardware working only benefits each manufacturer as it means more potential revenue, of which I am sure each understands very well.

I will be posting my results this week as soon as my N7700 is populated with drives. If I also experience the sector reallocation you can bet I will be contacting both companies and pushing for a fix. I am grateful for the contributors here in the same situation, it helps us all and generates a larger voice. I do not want to discount Thecus here, I am betting they are doing everything they can to support these drives, our testing and posting can only speed this along. Now if I am way off and neither Thecus or Seagate can provide a fix in short order, then back goes the Thecus box, which will be unfortunate.

So please keep the information flowing on this one. Sorry for the long winded post

[tristratos]

mbusse,

I totally agree with your point here. I guess the question remains:

THECUS, do you have ANY _intention_ of fixing the bug (reallocated sectors issue) or find a workaroung for it __OR__ get seagate fix its own bug if you still insist that is their fault ?

A clear and official answer to this would highly be appreciated!
At least we would have a _clear_ answer as to wether this will ever be fixed in the short run

T.

[deanpm]

curious to know. why the thecus unit doesnt just have a SMART disable option?

look at any controller or device that a HDD connects to and 99% of them will have the option to disable SMART.

[Raboo]

curious to know. why the thecus unit doesnt just have a SMART disable option?

look at any controller or device that a HDD connects to and 99% of them will have the option to disable SMART.

Turning off SMART will not fix the problem, it will simply stop the self tests of the disks and warning messages.

It's like running a server without logging.

[tristratos]

So Yvon @ Thecus,

What the final case is?
Do you plan a fix fo this at all?

T.

[Chrisjsherwood]

For two days in a row I have found the N7700 has switched itself off. Why?
To get thecus going again, had to remove mains supply and wait, then it would reboot.

My setup is now:-

Raid 5
Stripe 128KB
all 7 1.5TB drives in raid(one is showing warning)
ZFS File system
Total indicated Capacity = 8372.3GB
Data Capacity = 0GB/7827.8GB
Raid Status = Healthy
Firmware = 2.01.06

New worry then is the random switch offs?

Anybody throw any light on this?

Yvon@thecus ?

Regards Chris

[phildog33]

Chris, can you tell me really quick about ZFS vs EXT3?

I have 14x seagate 1.5tb drives, going into 2x N7700. They arrive tomorrow.

I am a photographer A/V professional, so I will also do 128kb stripe size.. but question about the file structure...


EXT3 you dont get full capacity.. lose about .5TB but much faster?

ZFS get full capacity of the 7x seagates, but much Slower than ext3 bec of computing neccessary?

Is it THAT much slower to run ZFS than ext3?

I work off another array, the thecus is just my onsite and offsite backups... But i want it to be fast to transfer to..

P.S. Also, what do you mean by ZFS

Total indicated Capacity = 8372.3GB
Data Capacity = 0GB/7827.8GB

It looks like the same .5tb is lost again??

Thanks for all your help, I want to setup the Thecus correctly tomorrow

Phillip

[RainerStratmann]

Hi Phillip,

with "ZFS" Thecus can handle 16 TB Volume-Size!
but it doesn´t support NFS and yes it is slower than Ext3-filesystem.
I don´t know about the other network-features like ftp or UpnP etc.

Best regards

Rainer

[phildog33]

let me know about this

Is it THAT much slower to run ZFS than ext3? big noticeable difference??

I work off another array, the thecus is just my onsite and offsite backups... But i want it to be fast to transfer to.. so thats important to me...

P.S. Also, what do you mean by ZFS has:
Total indicated Capacity = 8372.3GB
Data Capacity = 0GB/7827.8GB

It looks like the same .5tb is lost again??

[tristratos]

Yvon @ Thecus,

Any official feedback to these two issues?
1) Would you provide a fix for seagate's reallocation issue, or they are just a lost case ?
2) What about the n7700 unexpected poweroffs ?

T.

[Chrisjsherwood]

Just to clarify, with the thecus N7700 set to Raid5 and ZFS file system using 7x1.5TB seagate drives, the total indicated capacity of the Raid was: 8372.3GB, additionally Thecus reports that the Data capacity is 7827.8 GB, hope this helps.


Phillip I have not tested speed difference between Etx3 and Zfs, but can say that hd video seems ok on both. In view of all the forgoing trouble with the combination of Seagate 1.5TB and N7700, I would be cautious entrusting any data to the combo just yet. I feel there will be a resolution soon, hence I have not returned the stuff. This time has enabled me to try out various combinations of settings, something I would not have been able to do, had all been well, looking for positives here!

FYI N7700 did not switch itself off last night.

Chris S.

[tristratos]

Chrisj sherwood,

I just don't feel the same way that there will be a resolution to the n7700 and seagate1.5.
At least other than waiting for so long, asking and asking, there is still no official feedback on this.
Not even if Thecus has any intention to look into it. They just blame Seagate and wait for a miracle to happen it seems...
T.

[mbusse]

Update to my first post.

I received my 4 1.5TB drives from Newegg. I was all ready to put them in the N7700, but wait, oh no, they have CC1G firmware. I contacted Seagate to get the CC1H firmware, I was told I would have to wait until the next day as the firmware gods that hold the keys had all gone home for the day. No way could I sit and look at my pile of hardware and not be able to use it. God I love google, a quick google search and I found my CC1H firmware. I flashed my 4 drives and racked them in the N7700 along with a fifth 1.5TB I already had with SD1A firmware. I created a raid 5 array using the 5 disks. It took 12 hours to build the array. I noticed the the volume is only 5.5TB. I think I will add a 6th drive and rebuild the array now as it should still come in under the 8TB limit for EXT3. I will then add a 7th drive to be a standyby auto swap disk.

I have begun a 1.5TB data replication to the single volume, it will be about a week as the source is on a wireless segment with a low signal. I will be monitoring for sector reallocation. So far so good. I have had some time now to poke around in the N7700 console. I must say, I really like this NAS. Lots of features, and flexibility. You can tell a lot of thought went into this. (except for 1.5TB drives )

I will continue to post my results as time moves on. At this point I am not comfortable at all placing my critical data on this as the single copy. I am copying large amounts of data to it, but keeping the original copy on other drives as I do not trust it yet. Kinda disappointing that I don't trust my new raid 5 array that cost me almost 2k. he he, I thought that is what raid was for? peace of mind?

I do hope that these 1.5TB drives eventually will work with no issues, if not, I suppose I will wait for the Seagate 2TB ES series drives to release in Q1. Although this just means more money and a pile of 1.5TB drives sitting in the drawer.

I do have a question for Thecus, I have 5 1.5TB drives in a raid 5 and it reports around 5.5 for the volume size, can you explain in detail the whole 8TB volume limit. Can I put 6 disks in a raid 5 array? The total would be 6 x 1.5TB or 9TB, but after overhead, etc. I think the volume will come in under the 8TB limit. Is my logic correct here? Or can I only use 5 x 1.5TB for the first raid 5 volume?
One other question is can I add a 6th disk to the existing array without having to break the array and rebuilding it? If I can, can you explain how?

[deanpm]

just trying to work out some math.

the current 1.5tb drive has the following amount of sectors
2,930,277,168

now if the thecus is flagging 1 reallocated sector as a warning then surely something here is seriously wrong.
you would still need 2,930,277 sectors reallocated to equate to 0.1% failure.

[tristratos]

Don't let them fool you.
1.5 Seagate with SD1A firmware will get reallocated sectors soon enough and Thecus just reports them so.
Logical or not I don't know.

This is one major DOWNSIDE of thecus by now. No official report as to wether this will ever be addressed

Anyone from Thecus hearing still ? Yvon ??

T.

[phildog33]

raid caapcity vs data capacity?

hey guys, im still confused about the two #s being different.

You have to use ZFS to get more than 8TBs in volume on the thecus, ok.. so ill do that

but then... why is there .5tbs lost again? it looks like there should be some storage for information and system files but .5tbs?

chris can you explain that again..
with zfs... Raid: 8372.3GB, Thecus reports Data capacity is 7827.8 GB

????

how does it work.. thanks for helping me understand.