Lost key for NAS disks :( What now?

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DS248

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#237738 15-Jun-2018 21:04

Have a QNAP TS453 Pro now just over three years old, most of that time spent in a rarely visited spare bedroom/storeroom. NAS has four 6TB WB Red disks in it, one of which has developed problems (just past the 3 year warranty limit of course!).

Bought new replacement disk and went to install it, then realised that required a key to remove the faulty one. Alas, have no idea where the key ended up. Have searched all the likely places to no avail. Seems likely it was left in the original packaging but have not yet found any trace of the packing (quite possibly ended up in the recycling at some point).

Is there a non-damaging way of replacing the faulty key without the key?

Locksmith?

Dynamic

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#2038448 15-Jun-2018 21:36

I believe all QNAP devices use the same key.

“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams

freakngeek

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#2038449 15-Jun-2018 21:38

Possibly make your own key:
https://trainingrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/quick-fix-lost-qnap-key-for-hard-drive-tray/

DS248

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#2038456 15-Jun-2018 22:53

Thanks to both for your replies.

Yes old pen (unscrews in the middle type) did the trick. No need to heat anything. Part with screw thread on the outside was a good fit once scraped the thread down a bit. Plastic crumbled away a little in the effort but it did the job.

New disk now rebuilding. Guess that is going to take a good few hours. But at least NAS is now reporting all four disks good.

[Have to confess it was one of my sons, not me that did the job]

Reasonably impressed that the NAS appears to have reported the problem quickly. Follow up quick scan showed no problems but then did a full ~10 hr scan that did reveal problems. Full scans on the other three disks found no problems with those.

Not so impressed that the Red drive failed in just over three years. SOHO situation with just three users so pretty light traffic (NAS used as backup storage rather than as a server).

freakngeek

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#2038525 16-Jun-2018 10:23

Rebuilding RAID arrays (if your NAS is a RAID) can take a long time
I added a couple of 2TB drives to a 6x2TB drive RAID6 array, took pretty well 36hrs to rebuild

DS248

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#2038642 16-Jun-2018 13:21

Yes, still re-building, ~17.5 hours so far, with estimate of 1 hr 25 mins to go (~93.9% complete).

Re graphic below, I assume difference in latency is due to (initial?) write vs read, not because disk 4 (re-building) is ~3.5 yrs newer (albeit nominally the identical drive)?

For what it is worth, just before replacing the disk we upgraded the RAM from 1x 2GB to 2x 4GB

DS248

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#2038645 16-Jun-2018 13:22

Oh, should have said, running as RAID 5

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freakngeek

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#2038689 16-Jun-2018 15:01

RAID5 and 6 rebuilds data from parity spread over other drives, quite a processor intensive process
Disk 4 being written to only makes sense
The remaining disks being read from and written to is a little odd, wonder if its rewriting Parity as its rebuilding disk4

My aged Hitachi's have done me really well, must be knocking on 8 years of faithful service and I bought them 2nd hand off ebay
Not sure why I even run RAID6 as never had a drive throw a wobbly yet

DS248

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#2038694 16-Jun-2018 15:18

Rebuild completed. I read the start time incorrectly before so the 17.5 hrs was out. Total rebuild time was ~16.5 hours for the replacement 6 GB drive.

Latency now same across all drives (current activity being mostly a full virus scan)