N8800sas & re4-gp

[R25097]

I am creating a new thread because the "N7700 & RE4-GP" post in already buried
in the log list of older posts but the problem remains acute.

I am among many Thecus customers who were mislead by a former HDD compatibility list, back in May or June 2009 and I purchased a N8800SAS in July with 8 Western Digital 2Tb
WD2002FYPS hard disks.

Since then, I have experienced many random raid dropouts, so this NAS can’t be used in production even after 5 months !

I have set 2 raid 5 arrays : the 1st with 3 disks (3722 Gb) & the 2nd with 4 disks (5583 Gb) leaving the 8th disk as a spare.

Yes the rebuild process is quite fast : approx. 6 hours for 2 Tb of data but one or another array needs to be reconstructed at least once a week, what a drag !

Reading various forum posts, I was upset that Thecus did not provide a solution and even dared suggesting to buy other drives like Hitachi or Seagate 2Tb HDDs., what a lame answer !

Different Thecus firmware upgrades did not solve the problem, I am currently using firmware 3.0.07a beta., which, btw is buggy : I cannot access the ADS settings anymore, and each time
I set the correct LAN name the NAS stubbornly renames it “My WorkGroup” after awhile.
Hey Thecus please do something about it..

I have noticed on the Thecus site a new firmware, 3.00.08 for the N7700Pro & N8800 Pro, nothing indicates that this firmware is also compatible with the N800SAS (see the release note).
It’s confusing, so may one expect soon also a new firmware for the N800SAS ?

Regarding the WD2002FYPS, I have painstakingly upgraded the firmware of my 8 disk to 0405G05, using a SATA motherboard and a USB key with DOS as boot device.
Yes the drives seem more stable now but I’ve still got the random raid dropout !

Shame to Western Digital : there’s no information on their support site about any raid problems
with the WD2002FYPS, even the firmware upgrade is not mentioned. But do notice that their model has been changed to WD2003FYYS.

I am contacting WD support today and I want them to acknowledge the problem, otherwise it can be considered as wrongful advertising : their enterprise class raid drive does not behave in a raid array.
They shouldn’t answer that the issue comes from Thecus because a simple Google search gives you numerous entries : the WD2002FYPS is reported to be incompatible with QNAP, Synology, Netgear readyNAS, Adaptec & Areca raid controllers ; although some write that the latest WD firmware brings a solution.

Further searching makes me believe that the issue with the WD2002FYPS could be related to the “Intellipark feature” which has been abandoned altogether with the new model WD2003FYYS

I’ve found out that Western Digital had experienced similar problems with previous models,
one can download a “RE2GP idle mode update utility”.

There’s also a “wdidel3.exe” available outside Western Digital,an executable which modifies or disables Intellipark, but I do not want to test it without WD approval, the 5 year warranty could become void.

So, I expect Western Digital to provide us with a reliable fix or to swap my WD2002FYPS disks
with WD2003FYYS ones, free of charge.

This long post in the hope that many other disgruntled customers will apply pressure on both
Thecus and Western Digital to solve this serious deficiency

[patrickc63]

I'm in this case also,
N7700 and 7 re4 gp that i'm hardly upgrading right now

I thought that would have solve the drop out problem, it seems not by your experience...

So Western Digital we are waiting for an answer....

[jscwww]

We're having this problem using 4 x RE4 GP in each of two N7700s. We originally had 3 x RE4 in one N7700 (sold as a complete system by a retailer, so we assumed the drives were compatible!) and it seemed stable for 2 months (after an initial firmware update), so we got a second system for backup.

Now one N7700 or the other always drops a disk within a few hours of starting the backup, whether we use nsync or just copy between the mounted RAIDs via a desktop computer. WD firmware 0405G05 upgrade didn't appear to help.

Thecus recommended getting new drives, but the RAID hardware would be cheaper to replace than the drives. Does anyone have experience disabling intellipark? It seems surprising that intellipark would be an issue while the system is heavily loaded doing backup.