ASUSTOR - AS202T - Install failing with 3TB WD Red NAS Drives

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nunz

1421 posts

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#153983 14-Oct-2014 16:40

Hi All,

Hopefully this is the right forum for NAs boxes. If not tell me where to place this and I'll shift it.

Have two new ASUSTOR AS202T NAS boxes, the two bay versions. loaded them with 2 x 3TB Westerndigital Red (NAS) drives, went into the Control Center / Admin startup app and started to install the systems.

The process is to find the NAS box on the network (done that) click on it to initialise it (done that) and you can either do a 1-click simple process or choose the more manual process.

I have tried both processes on both NAS boxes and keep ending up stuck at the "Drive Intitialising, this will take a while type message. "

It turns out there used to be an issue with ASUSTOR and WD Red drives but a BIOS upgrade fixed it. I've talkd to the supplier and he has loaded several of them with 2TB WD REd disks - no problems. 3TB drives seem to be a problem so I suspect new firmwar from WD requiring new BIOs from asustor.

I suspect the BIOs shpped with new ASUSTOR dribves doesn't handle WD red drives 3TB and upwards. I've changed cables, networks, web browsers, firewalls, no antivirus, etc etc etc. Its a problem with the ASUSTOR boxes.

Why am I writing this.
1 - Let others who are struggling or using the AS202T ( and similar) that to get your WD rEd drives over 2TB in size working you will have to go through a BIOS upgrade.

2 - See if anyone else has had the same experience

3 See if anyone knows the process to log into the boxes using SSH / Telnet (which is how the ASUSTOR techs can theoretically do it) without having to get donor drives, initialise them, upgrade the bios then refit the other drives.

4 - See if anyone has done a bios upgrade and what they found. I dont like the idea of two bricks on my desk.

For the record - ASUSTOR have taken 5 -6 days to reply to my helpdesk query - told me to go through a process using donor drives when I explicitly said I didn't have donor drives nad wanted to know how to do the SSH / telnet method. they answer slowly and dont read their tickets - usual helpdesk muppets.

hio77

12999 posts

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Lizard Networks

#1153787 14-Oct-2014 16:46

Interesting considering the tests they boast their performance with on their site is with WD 3TB Reds..

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Gilco2

1556 posts

Uber Geek

#1153807 14-Oct-2014 17:04

I regret that I seem to have not followed up a while ago on my Asustor AS604T trouble with 3TB WD drives. In the end in my case I was unlucky enough to have 2 faulty drives out of 4 I bought. Playtech replaced them without issue after checking themselves.

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

Gilco2

1556 posts

Uber Geek

#1159271 21-Oct-2014 15:17

I just bought and setup the AS-304T for myself. The bios it comes with does not support WD RED.
I had quite a job setting the unit up.
In the end I had to select manual setup and change the default name to a name with no hyphens or spaces eg instead of default AS-304T-UD-19 it had to be AS304TUD19 for example. Then I manually set the time. I used an old WD green disk and once setup I then updated the bios as per their support. Once updated it has no problems with the RED drives and works extremely well.
the 1 click setup just would not work and had to use manual. Very important to change default name

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

Ragnor

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#1160089 22-Oct-2014 16:09

Can you not upgrade the firmware via the web ui without installing disks?

Gilco2

1556 posts

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#1160126 22-Oct-2014 16:59

Ragnor: Can you not upgrade the firmware via the web ui without installing disks?

not what I could find. The forums said the support staff can by cli into it and upgrade it but even support said best way is put 1 disk in that is compatible into slot 1 then initialize and update bios then remove and put in the disks you want

HTPC Intel Pentium G3258 cpu, Gigabyte H97n-wifi motherboard, , 8GB DDR3 ram, onboard graphics. Hauppuage HVR 5500 tuner, Silverstone LC16M case, Windows 10 pro 64 bit using Nextpvr and Kodi

nunz

1421 posts

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Inactive user

#1160405 23-Oct-2014 08:05

Hi gilco and others.
I would confirm your findings.
My process:
Upgrade adm / control software on pc before starting
manual install only. Dumbing myself down didnt work with 1 click.
dont use dhcp.
change the name ... now nas01

That seemed to work. 1-click is a failure.

having said that the install of opensource apos fromtheir app store went well.
Installing apple tunes server went okay but you cant remove /music from the watched folder list which isa bummmer as it contains non apple playable formats.
Apple remote app to play music finds nas and logs in to show music but refuses to play the music. Itunes wilk play the music via mapped network drive. Mp3 format.
own cloud app broke with bad disk access error. Tested drives and they are okay so removed owncloud.
the upnp function to modify firewall rourer says it had succeeded but apps via the cloud ftom myasustor.com fail. Still testing. Mixed feelings re this nas.