My TVS-872XT (running QTS 5.2.10.3577) has succumbed to the red light of death after a power outage and won’t boot. Looks like the widely reported motherboard failure; there is power, NICs flash but the power button does nothing, and it won’t boot, with a red light on the motherboard.
Replacing the motherboard looks to be expensive and possibly leaves me still prone to the same issue. Plus the NAS is 7 years old now and a bit more memory and performance would be nice.
So a quick, if expensive option seems to recover onto new hardware and the primary option looks to be the TVS-h874 flashed to QTS.
In theory, I just plug all the HDDs in the same order, boot up and with I guess a little re-configuration I’m back up and going.
However, a snag I can’t find a definitive answer to is this…
I was using a read-write cache using 2 x 1TB NVMe drives in RAID 1 mirror config.
My 872XT was on a UPS configured to cleanly shut the NAS down before power ran out. I am assuming it achieved this but obviously can’t verify now! That clean shutdown should have flushed the cache to disk.
What is the specific migration steps for a setup with this configuration?
What is the implication if the cache hadn’t cleanly shutdown? I’m ok with some data loss, but does it stop it mounting the disks?
For ref, I do have backups of important data but the majority is not as uneconomical to backup (I have 8 x 14TB disks in RAID6). It would not be the end of the world to lose, just very very annoying as would be the time needed to restore. So I am really keen on a direct migration approach, failing that go the motherboard replacement option and plan a migration.
Any advice on this specific situation would be appreciated. TiA
1.) Send the unit in to Nick’s electronics in Arizona. For about $450 they will replace the bad chip and you’ll get another X year’s out of the unit.
2.) Upgrade the default CPU with an i7 or possibly even an i9 that would drop into the socket. I chose an i7 and am very pleased with it. You can get those for about $100 off eBay.
So for less than $600, you NAS that should keep you going for a while. If you really don’t want your 872XT any longer, I will take it off your hands.
The TVS-h874-i5-32G-US is $2600 on QNAP’s website right now. So that’s a $2K difference.
Honestly, if you want my opinion for a new NAS, upgrade to the new TS-h966TX. While it only has 5 full size drive bays, it does have 4 of the smaller size as well. And it has built in 10G base T, plus Thunderbolt. It’s $1299. Now that has an i3 compared to the i5 and only 8G of RAM. So you’ll need to fork over some hefty dollars for RAM these days but I still think it would be less than double the cost of the h874.
Seriously though - if you are going to trash your 872XT, send me a PM…
Now, answering your question though - you should just be able to drop in your drives from the old NAS into the new one. Read the migration guides, but I have done this myself when I upgraded from my TS-451 to my TS-873A.
As for the cache data - it’s likely gone. But who knows - it is on flash. We would highly recommend you not use the cache. Use the NVMe drives as the system (not OS) volume. which is the first volume seen when the system is first configured.
I’m in the UK so I don’t think shipping to Arizona is really an option and I can’t find anyone in the UK that can do the equivalent.
I have 8 x 3.5” HDDs so a 6 bay is not gonna work for a straight swap.
I’ve been using the read-write cache to accelerate transfers via the 10Gbps NIC. I’m not too concerned if I lose some data, the concern is if the disks will mount at all from a straight swap. I’ve at least one article where they would not mount because of the cache drives – but that was a different NAS, QTS version & different drives. Can’t find any articles for my specific setup / scenario.
I might pursue QNAP for a replacement motherboard, that might be the safer option I guess. Anyone know if the motherboard issue was fixed in a later revision?
OK. So if you are in the UK, forget about me wanting your unit!
There was a revision that fixed the issue and removed things like the audio functionality (like the speaker and audio in/out ports). Any model with a serial number of Q21 or later will be fixed. A new motherboard from QNAP would probably have the fix.
For the migration I would open a ticket with QNAP. Cache is more often that not, not worth the effort and even working against you. Missing write cache will result in data loss.
