Thecus N4200Pro SATA Cable issues

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AllenG

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#97651 18-Feb-2012 19:53

Hi All.

Just thought I'd relate my experiences with a Thecus N4200Pro NAS .

I bought a Thecus N4209Pro NAS in September last year and filled it with 4 x 3TB WD Green HDDs.
I have since found out that WD Green Drives are not on the HDD compatability list because WD do not warranty them for RAID use and they do not have TLER so will drop out of the array if they have to perform error recovery. anyway the NAS is used in a home situation as a media server and weekly PC backups so it is only started intermittently during the week.

About a month or so after buying the NAS I had the Raid array drop the drive in tray 2 due to I/O errors.
I removed the HDD and ran the WD Digital lifeguard software full SMART test. the Drive passed and has zero reallocated sectors and zero pending sectors.
I reinstalled the drive and the array recovered.
The array dropped the same HDD a week or so later.
I swapped two of the HDD into different trays and rebuilt the array from scratch. Again the HDD in tray 2 dropped out of the array due to I/O errors. This happened with 3 different drives but always Tray 2.
I RMAed the NAS and they replicated the fault and replaced the Sata cable assemby on Tray 2.
On receiving the NAS back it wouldn't boot.
I had to return the NAS again. They replaced the Main Board.
I recovered my Raid array and now a week later I have an I/O error on Tray 2 again. Again a full WD diagnostic testof the HDD has no errors.

I have done some homework on Thecus Forum and it appears that there is a design or manufacturing problem with the Sata/Power cable assemblies in some of the Thecus NASes.
There is a repair kit that includes 4 heavier Sata cables. See here http://forum.thecus.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1245&start=70#p12915 I have removed the cover on my NAS and it appears that the replacement cable is not the heavier grade cable.

I am trying to locate somewhere to buy replacement cables that will fit the Thecus. They must have screw holes to allow them to be screwed to the chassis.

Has anyone else had this problem with their Thecus NAS and found replacement Sata/Power cables?

Anyone thinking of buying a Thecus N4200 eco or N200 Pro (& possibly other models) beware that there are a lot of users on the Thecus forums with similar problems.
Don't get me wrong. I love this NAS when is is working properly. I just wish it was more reliable.

Regards Allen.

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#583302 18-Feb-2012 21:26

my thecus n4200 (original) has been running 24/7 since Oct 2010.

i have 4x2TB WD green drive in it. no issue at all...

DrStrangelove

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#583338 19-Feb-2012 01:23

Have a QNAP TS-112 NAS. (Single drive, no RAID, 3TB max)

Read the same information about Western Digital drives in RAID arrays on the QNAP disk compatibility information.

Note5 (WD Caviar Green & Seagate Green)
These hard disk drives have passed QNAP lab's initial verification of compatibility. However, because many users have reported unstable experience with these hard disk drives, we do not recommend using these hard disk drives with QNAP products. WD10EADS-00P8B0 and WD15EADS-00P8B0 are not suggested because of slow performance and stability issues.

And I thought I was throwing the dice by putting a 1TB WD Caviar Blue in my box which doesn't use RAID, but now I read someone using WD Caviar Green in a RAID environment....Respect.

Now have a 2TB WD Caviar Black in the box, with the 1TB WD Caviar Blue now used as part of the eSATA external backup.

Once you've gone black, you can't go back.

[Now back to SATA cables...]

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#583343 19-Feb-2012 08:32

I would never ever even consider the use of Green drives in any form of NAS unit. The reality is they are a disaster waiting to happen. If you use them in a RAID configuration it's not a case if if your RAID array will crash, but when it will crash.

The only use (IMHO) green drives have is a cheap USB/eSATA based external backup drive.

nakedmolerat

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#583345 19-Feb-2012 08:37

sbiddle: I would never ever even consider the use of Green drives in any form of NAS unit. The reality is they are a disaster waiting to happen. If you use them in a RAID configuration it's not a case if if your RAID array will crash, but when it will crash.

The only use (IMHO) green drives have is a cheap USB/eSATA based external backup drive.

my green drives has been up and running for more than 1 year now. however, 2 of them dead within 1 week of use. CL gave me replacements and they have been fine for over a year since.

shrub

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#583363 19-Feb-2012 10:52

The green drives are the problem. Just have to google it to see. Average is about 1 in 20 will be returned within the first year due to failure.

AllenG

441 posts

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#583384 19-Feb-2012 12:01

Hi.

Thanks for the comments.

I made the decision to use Green drives based on the fact that the NAS is in a home environment and is only powered on for a weekly PC backup or for playing media. If I need the NAS I send a WOL packet to wake it up. The NAS is sheduled to power down at 11pm ever night. The green drives are giving me 80MB/sec file transfers over my Gigabit lan. I was also concious of budget.

I didn't know at the time about TLER and equivilent technologies.

My issue is not with the Green drives, If I have a genuine error on the drive and the drive gets kicked out of the array for taking too long in error recovery then I'll live with that, remove the drive, run full diagnostics over it and reinsert or replace it. As drives fail and budget allows I'll replace them with raid edition drives (at 2 or 3 times the price).

BTW I have had a Caviar Black drive fail in my desktop PC within 12 months.

The issue that I and many other thecus N4200 series owners are having are I/O errors caused by some manufacturing or design defect with the Sata cables.

See Slot 1 fails to find disk
Also Always lost HDD on tray 3 (Samsung HD204UI)

I am trying to obtain the upgraded or equivilent sata/power cable assembly as the NZ distributer doesn't seem to be aware of the issue.

Regards Allen.

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

#583457 19-Feb-2012 15:41

sbiddle: I would never ever even consider the use of Green drives in any form of NAS unit. The reality is they are a disaster waiting to happen. If you use them in a RAID configuration it's not a case if if your RAID array will crash, but when it will crash.

The only use (IMHO) green drives have is a cheap USB/eSATA based external backup drive.

Hi Sbiddle, What (IYHO) is the minimum drive for RAID on a home NAS? <5 hours use a day?

The Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB is in the Thecus "Consumer" HDD Compatability list. I somehow doubt that this drive has Seagate equivalent of TLER yet it's on the list?

The Hitachi 7K3000 HDS723030ALA640 3TB is also on the list but is seems no one on Pricespy has stock.

Regards Allen

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DrStrangelove

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#583653 20-Feb-2012 01:51

Probably get myself in over my head, but...

What is the 'grade' SATA cable you're after?

All of my SATA cables for desktop and external drives are 26AWG and 30W.
Are we looking at something better than that?
I have read of people with 30AWG SATA cables on the hunt for something better.

If one has only WD green disk, has one tried any which are RAID compliant in tray2?
Your 3TB green disk is SATA3 and thus does benefit from/require a quality SATA cable.

Have you tried pin jumpering the disk down to SATA2 while you wait for SATA cable or a better solution.
The jumper idea may do nothing but if the interface/disk are dueling it out at SATA3 levels and we know the WD green are not the best placed to handle rapid/high speed response, maybe AND that's a BIG outside chance the interface set to SATA2 may have some benefit.
This idea is based on NO facts whatsoever, but just some tooling I did with an old Pentium IV/AGP mother board and a SATA 1.5GB interface/SATA3 disk I had problems with which did sort it's self out.

When good NAS go bad and the disk(s) used are known non-performers, but there are other indicators that could contribute to problems, where does one start?

I'd plum for a RAID compliant disk to compliment the existing disk where possible if you can't get away with a complete array of cheap disk.

I read NAS are using there own software base read/write checking algorithms rather than relying on the inbuilt disk features regarding error checking.
This makes sense, as maintaining third party error checking routine compatibility in any given NAS would be a nightmare for firmware.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31202-should-you-use-tler-drives-in-your-raid-nas

Seagate ST3000DM001: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/49858-seagate-barracuda-3tb-raid-0-performance-unleashed-2.html

Ragnor

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#583660 20-Feb-2012 02:29

Green drives work fine now in most consumer NAS models as the manufacturers have updated their software/firmware for the larger sector size and power management issues. TLER is not really an issue on most software raid, all these consumer NAS use linux or bsd as a base and are effectively doing software raid via mdam etc.

In this kind of situation (design issue with sata assembly, shipping with the units in NZ) personally I would return the Thecus for an equivalent Qnap, Synology or Netgear model that doesn't have this problem.

Ragnor

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#583664 20-Feb-2012 02:47

AllenG:

The Hitachi 7K3000 HDS723030ALA640 3TB is also on the list but is seems no one on Pricespy has stock.

We got some for a Qnap NAS from Ascent, listed as out of stock on their website but they were able to get them in pretty quick iirc, maybe around a week on backorder.

Mark

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#584413 21-Feb-2012 11:28

Edit: Found something close for the cable :

http://www.macgurus.com/store/ecom-prodshow/SATACables.html

Right down the bottom of the page, wrong power connector but an easy swap.
Or you can email that company and ask if they do custom.

I have found that Thecus support do respond very welll for support when you ask them ... try asking them where you can source the cables from they'll probably tell you.

I've a Thecus N4200pro with 4 * WD20EARS drives in it (2TB "green") which are also not on the supported list, not had any issues whatsover, write performance is a consistent 105MB/s over a single gig-e connection.

theEd

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#584849 21-Feb-2012 22:09

Ragnor:

We got some for a Qnap NAS from Ascent, listed as out of stock on their website but they were able to get them in pretty quick iirc, maybe around a week on backorder.

Yeah, we bring QNAP in from Taiwan every week.

Green drives are hit and miss, sometimes it'll work fine, sometimes things go terribly wrong. Generally it's not worth the $10-$20 cost saving over WD Blue or standard Barracudas. If you call me with RAID issues on your NAS, and you have Green drives, I'll probably tell you where to go

AllenG

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#584859 21-Feb-2012 22:22

Just to be 200% sure the fault is with the Tray on the NAS I bought a Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 (on the compatability list) and put it in tray 2. The array rebuild started and lasted 4 minutes before "Hard Disk 2 on N4200Pro has an I/O error"

Oh well, If the distributers (Altech) can't fix it properly then it's time for a refund.

Regards Allen.

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

#588469 29-Feb-2012 18:29

Ragnor: Green drives work fine now in most consumer NAS models as the manufacturers have updated their software/firmware for the larger sector size and power management issues. TLER is not really an issue on most software raid, all these consumer NAS use linux or bsd as a base and are effectively doing software raid via mdam etc.

In this kind of situation (design issue with sata assembly, shipping with the units in NZ) personally I would return the Thecus for an equivalent Qnap, Synology or Netgear model that doesn't have this problem.

Hi Ragnor,

The retailer & Distributer have agreed to a full refund for the Thecus. It was still failing on the same tray with a Seagate Barracuda drive that was on the compatibility list.

What do you consider the equivilent Qnap & Synology models? The Qnap TS459 pro II and Synology DS411+ II are quite a lot dearer than the Thecus. Lower priced models lack some of the features of the Thecus.

Accepting that I have made a mistake and will have the WD30EZRX green drives for the foreseeable future and the Synology DS411+ has them listed in the compatability list, that seems like the way to go. The DS411+ is slightly dearer than the Thecus was, lacks hot swappable disks, dual lan, has fewer USB/Esata ports, no mini-ups, and a lower spec CPU that the Thecus but if it's going to be more reliable than maybe this is my best bet at a similar price?

I am using the NAS for Weekly PC backups and as a big bucket for my media which streams to 2 PCs, a TViX M6500A media player using an NFS share and an Oppo Bluray player (BDP83) using DLNA.

I was getting up to 80MB/sec transfers to the PC with large files on the Thecus.

I guess the other option is to put a larger high efficiency PSU in my I7 PC and use soft-raid. The Asus P7P55D-E motherboard supports it and I have enough free bays. The PC is running most evenings recording or playing back recorded TV. My only concern is that media centre H.264 TV recordings seem to be pretty temperamental even with the I7 processor so having the CPU doing soft-raid may be detrimental to media centre recordings.

Regards Allen.

nakedmolerat

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#588478 29-Feb-2012 18:53

i would still go for Thecus

(no, i dont work for them) haha

i wish you all the best finding the right replacement!

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