Failed Mycloud ex4 raid 5

Joshua Conner · October 08, 2018, 10:15:42 AM

Anyone know how to get data off of a failed raid 5 nas drive.

I have a WD my cloud EX4 that just got bricked on a software update.

I have 4 hard drives in it in a raid 5 the data on it wasnt critical but I would like it back if possible. I was using it as large cheap storage for stuff I didnt care too much about.

I believe it uses the linux file system. I tried to mount one drive in windows and it wouldnt do it.

Jeff Golas · October 08, 2018, 10:40:07 AM

Mounting that drive was not a good thing. Raid 5 does not just mirror the disks, it lays data on the disks a certain way where chunks of the data is also copied amongst all the drives.

You can try reaching out to WD tech support, but raid is likely hardware driven and has to be recovered with the disks in that unit.

Mark · October 08, 2018, 11:26:15 AM

There may be methods, but I've never done it before. Would be a learning process and could be quite technical.

Joshua Conner · October 08, 2018, 03:19:16 PM

I guess it needed a good nap I left it unplugged in my office from Thursday till today after lunch and it came back on!!!!

Hmm should I trust it or replace it?

I say trust it

Mark · October 08, 2018, 03:50:10 PM

Nice!

I'd go through and verify that you are ok with losing what's on it if you are going to "trust it".

Tom Fisher · October 10, 2018, 09:42:27 AM

Do you know which of the 4 drives took a dive? Replace that one and rebuild the array. Consider going to RAID10 configuration.

Jeff Zylstra · October 10, 2018, 10:11:06 AM

Related question here. Does chkdsk work on RAID drives? Does Spinrite work on RAID drives? How about any other Linux based recovery utilities? The first thing I'd do is a backup, but after that happened, I'd be inclined to experiment and see how software views the integrity of the array. Maybe an onboard RAID utility?

Joshua Conner · October 10, 2018, 10:53:27 AM

one of the drives didnt take a dive it was the whole thing that took a dive after a software update.

It has done this before after a software update it randomly decided that it didnt like the drives and told me the failed right after a firmware update in the past. I got through that data intact and now about a year later it wouldnt reboot after a firmware update. So i left it unplugged for 4 days and it came back to life.

So I used the built in utility to back the whole thing up to a usb drive. So I feel better about it now.

Mark · October 10, 2018, 11:28:43 AM

Quote from: Tom Fisher on October 10, 2018, 09:42:27 AM
Do you know which of the 4 drives took a dive? Replace that one and rebuild the array. Consider going to RAID10 configuration.

Doesn't RAID1 0still only tolerate a single drive loss? Sure it rebuilds faster and in theory means less of a chance of a second failure during a rebuild (less thrashing), but it also requires more drives to get the same amount of storage as RAID5. Of course, if you can do RAID10 it is better than RAID5, I do know that.

Mark · October 10, 2018, 11:30:12 AM

Quote from: Joshua Conner on October 10, 2018, 10:53:27 AM
one of the drives didnt take a dive it was the whole thing that took a dive after a software update.

RAID Controller issue/controller firmware issue. Scary. But you did say this data wasn't important.

Tom Fisher · October 10, 2018, 11:54:42 AM

Yeah, exactly what Mark said ... that controller is nichnich... I wouldn't trust it to babysit my data.