My QNAP NAS is dead (again!)

Back in December 2015, barely six months after I purchased my QNAP TS-451 NAS I found it ominously missing from my network.  Upon investigation, I found it in an endless reboot loop, and when it restarted, I found that it was always reset to the factory defaults.  I contacted QNAP’s tech support group who determined it to be a defective “factory reset switch”.  They sent me a form to fill out, which I did.  A week and two phone calls later, I finally got an RMA number so I could ship the server back to them.  About a month after that my unit returned, supposedly good as new.

At this point, let me put this out there: I really like the QNAP NAS appliance.  I like it’s low power consumption, and I love how the OS “just works”.  My ability to access my files, or sync with them over the Internet is brilliant as well.  In short, I really want to love everything about this device.

So here we are in April 2016.  By now the psychological wounds from the last time that my QNAP NAS left me high and dry were almost healed.  Then came last night.  I went to access some data on the QNAP, only to find it wasn’t responding to my copy command.  I then tried to PING it.  No response!  Flashbacks to December came over me.  I ran to the server closet, only to find it dead.  No lights, nothing.  I tried the power button.  No response.  I unplugged it, took it to a different outlet.  Still, sadly, nothing. I tried about a dozen more troubleshooting steps to no avail.

I finally broke down and called QNAP tech support.  They said it was likely either a failed PSU (Power supply unit) or a failed logic board.  Once again they sent me the RMA form.  I filled it out and returned it to them ASAP.  I’m hopeful, but only partly optimistic that this time it won’t take a week to get an RMA number.  I really don’t want to have to wait another month to get this unit back.

That said: My opinion on this whole QNAP NAS appliance thing has changed! 

 

Prior to this week, I was considering increasing my QNAP investment. I was looking at a fairly pricey 8-bay unit that supported Thunderbolt connections to my Mac systems.  This failure changed that.   I had at least three friends suggest I switch to Synology devices.  But after this, I may avoid any such solution in favor of a system I can build myself with off-the-shelf parts.

Let me explain my logic:  Unless I buy at least two of any device I consider (whether it is QNAP or Synology), if a part fails (Power supply, logic board, whatever), I’m at the mercy of sending the device back to the manufacturer for repair.  (That’s assuming I can obtain an RMA number in a reasonable amount of time!)  After I send it to them (my cost), I’m still waiting between two and six weeks to see the unit returned to me.  During that time, my data is offline.  (Even with my backup, where am I going to restore 10 to 12TB of data to?)

If I build my own server, I gain the ability to run down to Microcenter / Frys / wherever and obtain a replacement part.  I can even get a replacement part from Amazon or NewEgg in a day or two if need be.  The cost to assemble my own comparable server would be similar or less than an appliance solution from QNAP or Synology.

This sounds great, but what do I give up?  Well, the two main things I give up are:  Any self-built system, regardless if it runs FreeNAS, UnRAID, or even Windows is going to use more power than an appliance system.  That’s just a given.  I can do some things to mitigate this issue, such as spending a bit more for lower cost processors, but I’ll never get down to the power levels of these dedicated appliance servers.  Fair enough, and it’s a trade off that I can live with.  The second thing I’d give up is cloud support.  Many of these NAS manufactures build cloud server infrastructure to make it easier to access your data from anywhere.  Basically you connect to their web site (such as “myqnapcloud.com”) and after authentication, it will redirect you back to your home / small office NAS box where you can then freely access (or sync) your files.  This really does make the system a “personal dropbox”.  Short of using a solution such as BitTorrentSync, or TeamViewer I haven’t found an equivalent way to do this on a home-built NAS solution yet.  This doesn’t mean that such a solution doesn’t exist, it just means I haven’t found one yet.  I’m still looking, and suffice to say, in the early stages of research.

The third thing I’d give up is dedicated apps and an app store.  I don’t consider this major as any OS you deploy will have apps.  The main difference is that unlike in an appliance solution, you will have to configure them and set them up yourself.  So, you aren’t really losing anything here, other than ease-of-setup.

 

So, regardless of when I get my QNAP NAS back, it’s going to be retired!

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice (oh wait, that actually happened !?!)  Fool me three times, shame on me.

So, I’ll likely be building my own NAS in the near future, which should be a fun project.

That said: I have another (short term) solution.  Once I get the data off my NAS volume, I could just mount the drives into my Windows tower, set them up as a RAID volume and share them from there.  I’d have to keep the system running 24×7, but at least I’d have a lower cost up front for now.

 

In the meantime, I was exploring restoring (some of) my data to local storage until I can get my NAS repaired.  QNAP’s web site had mentioned this product called “reclaime”.  It’s (apparently) free.  It works with most NAS devices because nearly all of them use a file system called MD-RAID.

And … it works, sorta.

It takes a while to run, but eventually gives you a list of files that are on your RAID block.  The problem is that it doesn’t have the full file system.  It makes a big tree of folders labelled “TIF”, “JPEG”, “DOC”, “MP3”, etc, and inside each one is all of the files for that type.

Good luck getting related files all back together!

I did find another product I found that will re-assemble the file system as well.  It’s called UFS Explorer, and it looks brilliant (assuming it works).  The only downside is that it’s 99 Euros to purchase.  I’m not in THAT much of a rush to recover my files.

So for now, I’ve taken the drives back out of my main system tower, and put them back in their QNAP enclosure.

I did notice that a local tech retailer has a TS-451+ in stock.  Was thinking of going down and purchasing that, copying my data off to my external disks and returning it. (I’d pay whatever restocking fee they have, or just exchang it for parts to build a NAS.)  I guess my decision here will depend on how soon I find that I need a file that’s currently sitting in a stack of inaccessible drives.