Synology DS918+ doesn't start with the drives in

[panzerboy]

I have a DS918+ with 4 IronWolf 12TB drives in it. I bought it quite a while ago and it's no longer in warranty.

We were on vacation for two weeks and when I came home I noticed that the NAS is turned off. I should mention that it is connected to an UPS and in previous ocasions, when we had power outages, it handled them correctly by turning itself off. Also I don't know for sure that we had a power outage while we were away.

Anyway, I tried to power it on and the power button blinked blue for approx. 10 seconds, then I think I heard the drives trying to spin up then immediately the NAS turned itself off.

I tried to start it with only one drive in the first location and it behaves exactly the same.

I took all the drives out and tried to start it again. Now it actually starts, the power button blinks blue for a while, then it stops blinking and stays blue and the green status light starts blinking and a beep is heard. Also if I connect it to the network and I start Synology Assistant, it picks it up on the network.

Wanting to exclude drive failure, I bought a SATA-to-USB cable and connected each drive separately to my Windows PC and all 4 of them powered on and appeared in the Drive Management thingy of Windows (of course I couldn't access them in Windows Explorer).

So the drives seem all right, next step was to buy another SATA backplane for the NAS. That came today and I installed it and, unfortunately, it's the same result: without the drives it starts, with the drives it does not.

I should also mention that the NAS has 8 GB of RAM and no SSD.

Another thing I want to mention is that I most probably didn't insert the disks in the original order because I took them out and put them back in a lot of times and I didn't pay attention to the order. I guess/hope it doesn't matter.

So now I am out of ideas. Any other things I can try?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[PunchCardBoss]

Many thanks in advanc

You may have better replies posting in https://www.synoforum.com/

I have a DS 220+ so I have some familiarity with Synology NASs. What I do remember is that all drives are somehow paired to the hardware as a security measure. This feature means that someone stealing drive units can't just plug them into another Synology hardware box and work. So your new SATA backplane MAY preclude you from reading drives already configed with the old backplane without reformatting your HDDs (not sure on this).

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I also know that there is a specific protocol to use if the NAS has shut down for lack of power. You didn't mention what version of DSM you are using. On 7.1 there is a config switch that performs auto repair if power is unexpectedly shut down. Did you set that switch?

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My Synology NAS is unresponsive. What can I do? - Synology Bilgi Merkezi

Synology Knowledge Center; sık sorulan soru yanıtlarını, sorun giderme adımlarını, yazılım eğitimlerini ve ihtiyaç duyabileceğiniz tüm teknik belgeleri de içeren kapsamlı bir destek sunar.

kb.synology.com

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I'm not much help beyond what I have mentioned above. Hope you have good backups.

 

[panzerboy]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will post to the synoforum as well.

Regarding moving the disks to another NAS, according to this it should be possible ...

I have DSM 7.1 but unfortunately I don't remember setting the switch.

 

[PunchCardBoss]

Thanks for the suggestions,

Here is another procedure that might help...

My Synology NAS cannot enter "Ready" status after installing drives. What can I do? - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

 

[panzerboy]

Thanks for the suggestion, there is one small issue.

They suggest the following steps:

1. Power off your Synology NAS.
2. Remove all the drives from your Synology NAS.
3. Select one of the drives and insert it in the slot corresponding to Drive 1.1
4. Power on your Synology NAS and check its Power LED indicator.2 The LED indicator should change to a static blue or green color within 10 minutes.

The problem is that, between the step 3 and 4, the NAS doesn't start, i.e. it behaves with one drive the same as with all of them: it starts, the power button blinks blue for 10 seconds or so then it turns off.