NAS Problems

A while back I purchased an IcyBox NAS 4220B which is a strange unit to say the least.

Almost as if it is "beta" kit really.

Nonetheless.

I installed a 1TB drive and set it to JBOD, mainly because I wanted it up and running and could not locally source a number of smaller drives (2x500G).

Anyway, it has been working "ok" ever since with the odd glitch here and there.

last night I started to copy over a number of video files and the unit was performing exceptionally slow, much slower than normal with sub 1 MB/s transfer rates.

So, I stopped the copy operation which in itself on Vista was not too straight forward.

Killed off the process in Vista then shut down the NAS unit and started it off again.

Ever since, it "seems" that permissions have been changed for all users to "read only" so no matter which user I use to map the drive with, the same occurs.

I can read from the drive on multiple machines and a PS3 but cannot any longer add data to it or delete data from it.

I have checked the web interface for the share and confirmed that all normal permissions are indeed still in place.

I can no longer create any new shared as well.

Any ideas what may have gone wrong?

never heard of one of these boxes so i can only suggest things from my nas (qnap) can you ftp into it using the admin (or whatever admin level user account you have) and if so can you copy to the box. are you able to network into the box using samba ie \\your-name-here\ and see your network shares that way, and if so is it still read access? does the box have its latest firmware or are there known issues with it? the speed - what is normal over a 100meg network, a gigabit network, remember the limiting factor in most NAS'es for speed transfer (mine included!!) is the units CPU so you might be able to hit about 10-11MB/s on the 100M but for the gig network, you may want to hit about 10 times that, but in reality you may hit 2x, 3x maybe more maybe even less etc - cue the comments of "really my NAS can do XXXX speeds over a gig switch"
can you ftp into it and creates new shares, and transfer files over (assuming you can create in ftp and it has the right permissions)

other options with less finesse!, how much data is on the box, if at all - can you format and start again in case somehow the firmware has became corrupt and not letting you do all you should be able to

or is it a vista thing?
i dont have vista either so again no experience in that still on xp pro but does it make a difference if you ftp or web interface in using another OS

does the ps3 allow you to make new shares via the ps3 - dont have one of those either, still on xbox1 with xbmc on it

actually as i read this i am sounding more and more unhelpful
i dont have this kit, and i dont have that stuff, but here my tuppence worth!!!!!!!

probably best to skip my reply if you get any others!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried the FTP route with the same result.

Can get into the web interface easy enough and all is as it should be.

I suspect something went wrong during the copy operation which was aborted.

Either way, I am now copying off around 800GB data which is not easy since transfer rates on this box are awful. Once done I will reset to factory and start again.

A word of advice to anyone reading this, steer well clear of the Icy Box 4220B (and I would imagine their other kit) and spend a little more of a decent NAS server.

On that note, can anyone reccomend a decent bit of kit that will take two drives but also allow single drive JBOD and can provide some kind of Twonky (DLNA) service and Windows share access?

I can endorse your low opinion of the icy box. Mine lasted long enough for me to move all my data onto it before it decided there weren't any drives present. Worse piece of kit I've ever bought.

qnap!!!

which i just happen to have
actually i have a ts409-pro 4 drive kit but they do 2 drive units and 5, 6, 8 etc
also the 409pro is getting on a bit so i am sure there are more updated versions of the same 4 drive kit (and newer 2 drive versions but the was a 209 from memory)

hit qnap website for all that they have, there is too much for me to mention here

another option i was looking at before buying was a synology box (i think it was a something409 cant remeber just remember that there was 2 different 409 series and it was the more expensive one i was looking at)
anyway
when it got down to it there was not much difference between the qnap i wanted and the snyologoy i was looking at, from transfer speed to functions and addons my qnap even does torrents natively [i dont like torrents tho so cant say if its any good] - what i did like was the fact you could add little install type packages for my qnap - check out the forum for ideas on what you can add

another kit to read up on is readynas - at the time they didnt have ones that had all the bells and whistles that the qnap and snylogy did but the speeds seemed faster for transfers dont kno if thats still the same

anyway there are some options for you to mull over
good luck

iirc you can add more ram to the readynas boxes which speeds them up a lot, servers running WHS are also a good option i think.

as for nanook problem with the icybox you should be able to fix the permissions by changing them to something else then back to what they were previously, if that or a factory reset dont work i dont really know. it sounds to me like the icy isnt worth the effort tbh.

Having got all the data off, I tried different ideas and eventually had to completely rebuild from scratch.

Damn horrible piece of kit.

was on "el reg" and happened to see this
i think the problem you may have is if you want some good kit that is reliable and with loads of features you will pay one price range
or
you can pay another price range and get, well, how can i put this
a product that is maybe not as reliable
i shall let you decide which category yours is in!!!

is that a nice way of putting it


only kidding
to be fair as i said at the start i have never heard of your kit or looked for a review of it, so i cant judge it - i am only basing this on the comments in this thread regards it so i will let you decide if its any good, but the link in the reg seemed to be well timed for your needs for a suggested bit of kit

only thing i would say is whatever you decide on google for reviews on it, dont get stuck with another expensive bookend

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/12/10/koy_2009_nas/