[Music Alchemist]

June 2017 update: The array randomly decided to stop being slow!

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I'm really bummed that my external hard drive array that I paid $1,100 for years ago (Buffalo DriveStation Quad 12 TB; model HD-QL12TU3R5) is having problems. It still works, but is a hundred times slower than before. It takes awhile just to be recognized, then takes a long time to transfer any files. Forget directly accessing any files from it now. It's out of warranty so the company won't give me support. I did some research but haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it. I tried defragmenting it, but it barely made any progress after days on end, and that's after "fixing" the drive with the Windows prompt. At least if one of the drives fails, it can be replaced with no loss of data. But it doesn't look like that's what's going on.

If anyone has ideas for what I should do, it would be great if you could help me out!

I would prefer not to have to send it to a third party to have it fixed. (I'm paranoid about privacy, security, and things like that.)

 

[RRod]

  I'm really bummed that my external hard drive array that I paid $1,100 for years ago (Buffalo DriveStation Quad 12 TB; model HD-QL12TU3R5) is having problems. It still works, but is a hundred times slower than before. It takes awhile just to be recognized, then takes a long time to transfer any files. Forget directly accessing any files from it now. It's out of warranty so the company won't give me support. I did some research but haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with it. I tried defragmenting it, but it barely made any progress after days on end, and that's after "fixing" the drive with the Windows prompt. At least if one of the drives fails, it can be replaced with no loss of data. But it doesn't look like that's what's going on.
 
If anyone has ideas for what I should do, it would be great if you could help me out!
 
I would prefer not to have to send it to a third party to have it fixed. (I'm paranoid about privacy, security, and things like that.)

 
Can you run S.M.A.R.T. tests on the individual drives in the array?

 

[silvrr]

Going to need some more detail to help:
 
How is it accessed?  Wired network, wireless network, usb3, esata ect. 
 
Are all the drives healthy?  Have you performed any checks of the individuals drives for health to see if one is failing/failed?
 
It appears you have a RAID array in place, what type of RAID array?
 
Any recent changes to the network, your computer or any part of the setup?

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Can you run S.M.A.R.T. tests on the individual drives in the array?

 
Thanks for the tip. I'll try that later.
 

  Going to need some more detail to help:
 
How is it accessed?  Wired network, wireless network, usb3, esata ect. 
 
Are all the drives healthy?  Have you performed any checks of the individuals drives for health to see if one is failing/failed?
 
It appears you have a RAID array in place, what type of RAID array?
 
Any recent changes to the network, your computer or any part of the setup?

 
It connects to a computer via USB. It supports USB 3.0 and 2.0, but my laptop only has USB 2.0 ports.
 
I have not performed checks as I did not know how to until now, but I will soon. If one of the drives failed, I'd assume that I would not be able to access the data at all, though, so this would be more about checking the risk of failure.
 
I don't recall the RAID number. It's configured so that if one of the drives fails, I can replace it with no loss of data, and there's about 8 TB total space instead of 12. Here's an official link for the product, if that helps:
 
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/desktop-hard-drives/drivestation/drivestation-quad-1
 
I upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 last year, but it worked fine for a long time with Windows 10. It became really slow when I was converting an audio file to another format on it a few months ago. I had done that with no issues before, but I guess that put more stress on the drives.

 

[wuwhere]

If I were you I'll open it up, pull out all the drives, take one drive and plug it in each slot to check each one. Most likely a bad hardware or a bad power supply.
Also, there's a fan in there to cool the drives, they get hot. Check that its still working.
 
HDDs don't like the heat. That's why they have little holes for vent and a sign that says don't cover the holes.
It gets dirty inside too because of the fan. So clean the inside every so often.
 
I have a friend who's redundant HDDs got fried including his PC motherboard because the fan stopped working so the power supply
overheated and conked.

 

[redmaw]

Afraid all I can suggest a few simple things as anything else I can think of is outside of our capability to fix (and diagnose for the most part).
 
- Make sure all the drives are working
- Try another USB port
- Try another USB cable
 
Also if it is adverting 8 TB of disk space from 12 TB of actual storage it should be configured for RAID 5 (out of the 0 and 1 alternatives).

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Can you run S.M.A.R.T. tests on the individual drives in the array?

 
Okay, I just opened CrystalDiskInfo. When I click Disk to switch to the external hard drive array, it doesn't even show up in the list of drives, but when I click Function, Disk Management, it does, and it says it is healthy.
 
Now what?

 

[potatochobit]

these things do fail over time
thankfully they are alot cheaper now
check this one out, as long as you dont need to access files over the internet via a cloud
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J7VUNBS
 
if you have spare hard drive, you can reformat it
remove all the other drives and put the spare in the buffalo and see if it still performs slow 
your hard drives are also not over 80% full correct?
and you cleaned out the buffalo to make sure the processor is not overheating
also try it on a different laptop, could be a network issue 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  these things do fail over time
thankfully they are alot cheaper now
check this one out, as long as you dont need to access files over the internet via a cloud
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J7VUNBS
 
if you have spare hard drive, you can reformat it
remove all the other drives and put the spare in the buffalo and see if it still performs slow 
your hard drives are also not over 80% full correct?
and you cleaned out the buffalo to make sure the processor is not overheating
also try it on a different laptop, could be a network issue 

 
It can be reformatted with no loss of data?
 
I do not have any spare drives.
 
Correct. There's about 24% free space.
 
No. I do not know how to clean anything. It doesn't feel hot.
 
I have tried it with other computers. Same problems.

 

[redmaw]

   
Okay, I just opened CrystalDiskInfo. When I click Disk to switch to the external hard drive array, it doesn't even show up in the list of drives, but when I click Function, Disk Management, it does, and it says it is healthy.
 
Now what?

Because it is a USB device and a RAID array the underlying disks are most likely not being found by crystal disk info, assuming they are even exposed in the first place. You could try HWInfo but it probably will not work any better. To get the SMART data for those drives you may have to connect them directory to a computer so the software can see them. If you do this do one at time and give the array a chance to rebuild in case something goes horribly wrong during the check.
 
To clean the unit just dust as well as you can. If it has any intake vents or fans they could be clogged with dust causing the system to not get the airflow it needs.
 
Reformatting as done through an OS typically just creates an new empty filesystem on the targeted logical volume, and since the filesystem is how the system records how data is stored on the logical volume reformatting would be very close to complete data loss (so do not do it ). That said though since you have a RAID array you can safely replace (or reformat, but there is no point to that) one drive and it should be able to rebuild it with no data loss.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Because it is a USB device and a RAID array the underlying disks are most likely not being found by crystal disk info, assuming they are even exposed in the first place. You could try HWInfo but it probably will not work any better. To get the SMART data for those drives you may have to connect them directory to a computer so the software can see them. If you do this do one at time and give the array a chance to rebuild in case something goes horribly wrong during the check.

 
How do I connect each individual drive to a computer?

 

[redmaw]

   
How do I connect each individual drive to a computer?

 
To connect to a laptop you will need put the drive in a single drive enclosure or dock.
 
You can also connect it to desktop if there is an available SATA port, SATA cable and power cable. This will be more technically involved so hopefully the first solution is possible.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  To connect to a laptop you will need put the drive in a single drive enclosure or dock.
 
You can also connect it to desktop if there is an available SATA port, SATA cable and power cable. This will be more technically involved so hopefully the first solution is possible.

 
I do not have any separate drive enclosures or docks. What if I were to remove all but one of the four drives?

 

[redmaw]

   
I do not have any separate drive enclosures or docks. What if I were to remove all but one of the four drives?

 
I do not think that will work. My theory is that the Buffalo system is advertising itself as USB mass storage device and not exposing the actual drives (or AHCI controller) to your computers OS so one drive or four will have the same result.
 
One thing I am curious about is how do you monitor the health of the array? For instance if you take one drive out does it tell you something is wrong? In my opinion something like this should have a way of checking drive health and status.
 
Also am I correct in assuming the HDDs came with the Buffalo system when you bought it?

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I do not think that will work. My theory is that the Buffalo system is advertising itself as USB mass storage device and not exposing the actual drives (or AHCI controller) to your computers OS so one drive or four will have the same result.
 
One thing I am curious about is how do you monitor the health of the array? For instance if you take one drive out does it tell you something is wrong? In my opinion something like this should have a way of checking drive health and status.
 
Also am I correct in assuming the HDDs came with the Buffalo system when you bought it?

 
All I know is that I connect it to my computer via USB and access it just like any other external hard drive, except it has four drives in the enclosure. I have never messed with it. I think I would have to unscrew things just to remove one of the drives. I don't want to take any action without knowing for sure what the consequences would be.
 
Correct, it is just one complete product. I provided a link in a previous post.