Bricked WD EX4 - Can I use FreeNAS to recover?

[virtualuk]

My WD My Cloud EX4 (16TB) looks like it's bricked, but I believe the data on the drives (setup using RAID5) is intact. If I were to install FreeNAS on a machine, would it be able to access the data stored on the 4x4TB RAID5 drives or would there be issues with WD proprietary nonsense? I believe the EX4 is running a cut down version of linux, some I'm hopeful that at least the RAID software used should be fairly standard.

 

[danb35]

It probably is using a reasonably standard Linux software RAID system. So why would you be looking at installing a completely different OS to try to read it?

 

[virtualuk]

I'm guessing that the WD EX4 isn't running stock Linux due to custom hardware and I need to get the content off of the RAID5 disks it has been writing too. I'm done with the EX4, it's been slow and unreliable from the get go, and given that it's now bricked, it's effectively useless, so time to build something that's more open/interchangeable like FreeNAS.

 

[IceBoosteR]

I agree to danb35,
install a standard linux and try to mount the RAID, but do it in read only mode first, to not destroy the headers or other information.
It might be a simple md_raid with ext4 filesystem on top.

Edit:
I found a page (in german) where you can find some information about that what I just wrote, and I was correct. just see the graphic at the bottom of the page, there you can see hte partition table:
https://www.onderka.com/inhalt/wd-mycloud/debian-auf-der-wd-mycloud/
But this is only apllicable for the MYCLOUD, not the EX4, so I can not gurantee that the EX4 handles that the same way.

 

[virtualuk]

Thanks IceBoosteR / danb35. I've moved all my linux instance to the cloud (except for couple of r-pi clusters that I keep), so anything that's going to be running linux + have 4 SATA drives would need to be a new build. Given that the new build would ultimately become my new NAS, would you suggest just running a vanilla linux or installing a virgin install of FreeNAS?

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Given that the new build would ultimately become my new NAS, would you suggest just running a vanilla linux or installing a virgin install of FreeNAS?

You may have overlooked the fact that FreeNAS is not based on Linux at all, it is a FreeBSD derivative instead. Any Linux distribution should be a better starting point to revive a Linux-based RAID5 "anything" than FreeNAS.

 

[danb35]

You may have overlooked the fact that FreeNAS is not based on Linux at all,

Which is the point I was trying to make, though perhaps not explicitly enough.

@virtualuk, FreeBSD is not Linux. It doesn't do Linux software RAID. If you want to recover data that's written (as you suspect, and as @IceBoosteR is also supporting) using Linux software RAID, use Linux to do it. Whether that Linux installation becomes your NAS is up to you.

 

[virtualuk]

ahhh major apologies, I didn't realize that FreeNAS was FreeBSD based.

 

[Chris Moore]

ahhh major apologies, I didn't realize that FreeNAS was FreeBSD based.

FreeNAS is likely the superior solution for a new NAS, but you would first need to get the data off the disks, which sounds like it will take a temporary installation of Linux. The big advantage of FreeNAS is the ZFS file system and the GUI which makes configuration a breeze.

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Generally speaking, any hardware that would be suitable for FreeNAS would also run Linux. You could use the same build to first recover your data and then turn it into the NAS going forward.

 

[wblock]

It is entirely possible that the filesystem used on external disks or custom NAS hardware is either modified from an open-source version or entirely proprietary. Put another way, it might not be possible to recover data without the original hardware or a compatible version.