[uunix]

So I have this nas box with 4 x 250GB drives.
The box came from Aardman (creators of Wallace and Gromit).

When it boots, the actual Buffalo box fails to display on the front panel, and cannot be configured using the nas manager.
Saying that, all lights on the unit show as good. The device obtains an IP from DHCP and can be found by the nas manager.. so I would say the box is foo-bar'd.. but the drives appear OK..

So, based on that, I found..

<URL url="https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Buffalo-Terastation-Pro-TS-ITGL-R5-No-HDDs/372355008583?hash=item56b2168847:g:7ewAAOSwxphbHn3Z">[url]<LINK_TEXT text="https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Buffalo-Tera ... SwxphbHn3Z">https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Buffalo-Terastation-Pro-TS-ITGL-R5-No-HDDs/372355008583?hash=item56b2168847:g:7ewAAOSwxphbHn3Z</LINK_TEXT>[/url]

£79.. now it's sort of a win - win(ish) situation.

I'd buy it because there may be data of interest in the array.

But some worries.. Would fitting an existing array into a new box keep the array and data.. (It may not have even been set up as array, I have no way of knowing at the moment) or would it wipe it? I do not at this point want to remove any of the drives and fit them into anything else just in case.

If I purchased this unit and it did wipe the data, then I still have a working 1TB NAS box.. which bit expensive.. but a gamble.

Anyone had any experience with Buffalo? Thoughts?

Again, as a point, I can see this NAS on the network, but cannot access.

[mrthinlysliced]

If you've got the disk space elsewhere plus the right connectors, why not just "dd" a copy of the drives somewhere?

I'd be tempted to do that anyway until you've seen the thing up and running, so to speak.

Looks like these things run a version of Linux from wikipedia, and I'm guessing they were using the in-kernel RAID tech. So if you've got a regular Linux machine you can hook all four up to, you may be able to md-raid your way to mounting/discovering them like that.

I'd start with mdadm --examine kind of stuff, maybe have a sniff around with gparted and see if the partition types / raidness shows up.

[uunix]

UPDATE...

Well.. I ordered the second Buffalo from eBay some weeks back. Inserted the disk from the original one which apparently wasn't working, but they failed.
I thought this was down to they[the drives] didn't have the correct firmware, so checked out the procedure for replacing disks.
Firstly I had to create a tftp server and pop some images in there.
I carried out this procedure many times and got to a point of the new unit booting, but when it came to flashing the firmware, it just wouldn't accept it.

In the meantime, the original Buffalo suddenly had a display and started working, albeit with no lights. So I flashed the firmware in the same way and got it up and running.

I transferred the disks into the new one, and still it went wild flashing warnings etc and still could not accept any firmware update.

It seemed the new Buffalo could not accept any disks at all. I asked the seller permission to open up the unit and check inside, he agreed, but found nothing wrong.

At this point both the seller and I agreed it had to be the SATA controllers or something on the mother board.

I have to say the seller was great and apologetic for the hours of my companies time I had spent on this.

I should receive my new buffalo today, which is a later model.
<URL url="http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/products/storage-devices/business-nas/terastationtm/archive/ts-xel-terastation-es/">[url]<LINK_TEXT text="http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/pr ... tation-es/">http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/products/storage-devices/business-nas/terastationtm/archive/ts-xel-terastation-es/</LINK_TEXT>[/url]

As for the original, no data was found from Aardman animations, so I either wiped it in the process or there was none on in the first place. It is though working, I have web interface and it has a raid 5 array running. Although the LED display has once again died.

I'm unsure if these are any good really, considering replacing the disks with 4x3TB drives (max they can take).
Strangley my two eComStations cannot write to them, although they can map and read, and the permissions are correct, I wonder if the Samba version is a problem.

So I look forward today to another box to play with. Fingers crossed.

[uunix]

New unit arrived and although it is a pain to restore when all the disks have been removed, this one now works fine. Think I will use it as a DNLA server.

So.. end of story really.

[Jacques]

Apropos of nothing...I drive past Aardman Animation every day...! I even walked past Nick Park and smiled a greeting at him a few times in early 2010 on my walk in to work. I know it was then because they had just put some 2009 Mac Pro empty boxes out the back of the old banana store studio.

They run quite a tight ship and don't think they'd leave data on the drives.