[Quo Fan]

I have a Buffalo NAS, with 1 terrabyte of storage. Two disc in Raid 1 configuration. I'm trying to upgrade the storage to 4 terrabytes. Got the new drives, and swapped 1 drive out, NAS saw the drive as 4 terrabytes, and formatted to same. I understand that the raid would not rebuild with unequal drives. I tried to install the 2 4 terrabyte drives and initialize the NAS. No joy. I've tried to reinstall the 1 terrabyte drives, and again, no joy. I have no idea why this is happening. The NAS will not boot and recognize usable space on any drives. When it boots with the 1 terrabyte drive installed, I cannot log into the web based utility to configure the NAS. Using the Buffalo Utility, the NAS comes up in "EM Mode", which is emergency mode. The documentation says to upgrade the firmware if that happens, but the NAS won't allow me to do that. I don't know if there is a "hard reset" button, but I don't think so. What am I missing?

 

[canadmos]

What happens when you start it with no drives inside? Which model?

 

[Quo Fan]

I tried to boot it without drives, and it went to a fault condition. Nothing showed in the NAS Navigator utility. The model is LS-WSX1.0TL/R1.

 

[binary visions]

There's a way to hard reset the NAS, I had one at work for a while.

Google sez:

• Hold down the power button for 8 seconds. The Terastation will shut down after about 30 seconds.

• While holding down the function button, press the power button. The Terastation will power on and the function LED will begin to flash blue.

• While the function LED is still flashing, hold the function button down for six seconds

 

[canadmos]

Any luck?

 

[Quo Fan]

No joy on fixing the enclosure. Somehow the network interface got messed up. It would report that the workgroup was UNKNOWN. Replaced the enclosure.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

So you're still buffaloed?

 

[Quo Fan]

So you're still buffaloed?

Yep. New Buffalo enclosure.

 

[canadmos]

What did you do with the broken one?

 

[Quo Fan]

Nothing yet. What do you recommend? It appears that the network interface is fuxored.

 

[canadmos]

Hmm, I dunno. There must be a way to get it going again, instead of becoming an expensive brick.

Are you able to ping it, with it powered on and plugged into your network?

 

[Quo Fan]

Comes up with an IP address, but the workgroup identifier says UNKNOWN. It was only a little over $100 to get a new discless enclosure, since I already had the 2 4terrabyte drives. Device is now rebuilding/copying data to a RAID 1 configuration.

 

[Quo Fan]

I may still mess with it, or maybe talk to Buffalo and see what they say.

 

[canadmos]

What do you mean by Workgroup Identifier? How are you getting that information? Screenshot?

There could be other ways of flashing a custom Linux based OS onto it (which it probably already has), which would allow you to SSH to it as root and do whatever you please with it.

 

[Quo Fan]

This is what would show up, though it would all be in English. The first line is the network identifier. It should read WORKGROUP on my network.

 

[canadmos]

If you know the IP, can you access it by entering the IP into a web browser? It should have an HTTP server built into it and will omit using what can be buggy management software.

Also..........this might be a total derpderp moment, but I think this model only supports up to two 1tb drives, if I am reading this correctly;

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/storage-devices/consumer-nas/linkstationtm/linkstation-trade-mini/

If you click on Specifications, it will list the supported capacities. Though, it isn't very clear if those are the MAX supported capacities or what is delivered with the product. But that could be why you had trouble in the first place...

 

[johnbryanpeters]

And all of this for two TB of storage...

 

[Quo Fan]

Upgraded to 4 TB of storage. I had put one of the new drives in and it formatted to full capacity. When I put the second drive in is when everything went tits up.

 

[canadmos]

I have a good feeling that this thing isn't totally bricked. It does sound like it won't accept anything over 2gb.

Though, did you replace it with the exact same model?

 

[SkaredShtles]

And all of this for two TB of storage...

lol.

Truth.

I ordered one of these for work recently:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G1GC3522&cm_re=5tb_external_hard_drive-_-22-149-522-_-Product

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Wull, that doesn't get you the RAID 1 mirroring that the balky Buffalo does, but you could mirror a couple of drives in a workstation and avoid the expense and hassle of Paul's external appliance.

 

[canadmos]

As long as you aren't using RAID 1 as your backup strategy.....

I have something very similar to this Buffalo box. Even if its a little more expensive than repurposing an old computer, the convenience of being able to grab the device that's the size of two tall boys has been great. If my friends/family want some content that I have, I just bring the entire box over to them. Lugging a desktop around is a pain.

As for this one in particular;

Its still good, its still good...

 

[SkaredShtles]

As long as you aren't using RAID 1 as your backup strategy.....

I have something very similar to this Buffalo box. Even if its a little more expensive than repurposing an old computer, the convenience of being able to grab the device that's the size of two tall boys has been great.

You mean... like an external USB drive?

I've always been curious what is the main draw for people with these NAS things...?

 

[stevew]

#lotsofporn

 

[binary visions]

I've got a Synology 2-disk NAS.

I could do 2-disk mirroring in the desktop, of course, but that puts all of my online copies inside one piece of electronics. Keeping it external to the computer means that, if my power supply decides to cook everything attached to it, the NAS is unaffected since it's autonomous.

You can do RAID 1 in a USB device, but they're fairly expensive anyway and don't get you away from having to attach it to the desktop directly and leave your desktop powered on.

There are a few other advantages, like access from any network attached system without my desktop needing to be powered on. The Synology apps are nice, since I can do my Google Drive or other syncs/backups without leaving my desktop running - and actually the whole OS they run on them is quite good.

There are ways to accomplish most of this stuff but at the end of the day the Synology was a clean, simple solution to all of those problems without investing a lot of time.

 

[canadmos]

Plus most of these things come with some blinking lights. We all know how cool blinking lights are.

Another benefit that I like, is that with the smaller size of these things they can be "hidden" pretty easily. Stick it in a closet or somewhere and you'll eliminate most of the risk of having your stuff stolen if someone decides to break into your house. Which has happened to me.

 

[binary visions]

I've had it happen to me as well but I stage my backups with the assumption that a disaster in my house (flood, fire, break-in) would remove 100% of the electronics I own.

Because during the last break-in, that was the case. They even stole my sleeve full of backup DVDs.

 

[canadmos]

That's true, you can never do better than an off-site backup location.

Dick move to take your DVDs.....