Test NASDrive

[joeblack]

Hello All,

I have a D-LINK 2bay NASDrive runnning ALF-F firmware (probably not important for this discussion but details on here).
I'm using two SEATGATE Ironwolf 2TB HDD's, both brand new.
I have setup this NAS drive as RAID1 with EXT4 as filesystem type, since I want to use it as a backup device for family pics and vids.
Before I store all my precious memories on these, I thought I'll first need to test my setup - i.e. confirm that files exist on both drives. For this I have followed the following logic:
1) Setup NAS as RAID1
2) Create a few directories and copy a few files
3) Wait until sync-ing is done and all are reported correctly on the status page (my logic tells me at this point that the two drives will now be mirrored.)
4) Switch off the NAS Device, undock each HDD, mount the drives in an external HDD casing
5) Plug the external HDD into a USB on an Debian 11 terminal.
6) Mount the HDD and browse to the directory.

I was expecting to see my test file structure at this point but there is nothing.

I have two questions:
a) Is there something wrong with my logic or,
b) Is there any other way to proof that a RAID1 setup was done correctly ?

Hope all makes sense and that I have not left out some critical part of information. Thank you in advance.

 

[sfx2000]

4) Switch off the NAS Device, undock each HDD, mount the drives in an external HDD casing
5) Plug the external HDD into a USB on an Debian 11 terminal.
6) Mount the HDD and browse to the directory.

If this is data you care about - don't do anything until you have it backed up somewhere else.

Mounting one of the RAID1 disks is good for recovery, but it will make changes at a low level to the file system, and it could break your array afterwords.

Another tip - NAS/RAID is not a backup solution by itself, have a plan to back up the NAS to another drive/location - hardware dies, fires and theft happen (hopefully not, but it does happen) - having that NAS backed up to other media (USB external for example) and/or offsite is peace of mind.

We've had too many (1 is too many) ask for help to recover a NAS after something happened..

 

[Tech Junky]

EXT4

Did you use a compatible OS to check the drives? When outside of the NAS w/ SMB making the FS transparent to the end clients whether Win / Mac / Linux / Android you need to be running something that can read / speak EXT4.

Also, since they're in R1 there's a possibility you might need to do a "mdadm scan --assemble" to make them readable from another system outside of the NAS.

 

[eightiescalling]

Did you mount the HDD (as you worded it) or the md device the drive becomes part of? (/dev/md1 for example)

In addition to the mdadm scan command @Tech Junky mentions, can you see the array picked up and used the USB drive if you cat /proc/mdstat?