SPD8020 extremly slow after bios update to 1.2.9.47

[pgoovaerts]

Hi,

I have a network drive SPD8020 with 500Gb disk. Because my drive told me that my disk was full whereas there was still 175Gb free space, i contacted Philips helpdesk. After some testing it appeared that i couldn't add files anymore, it was not the diskspace itself. When i removed 3 files of 3kb, i could add 3 new with total space of +1Gb.

1) BIOS 1.2.9.47 installation
From Philips, i received a new BIOS to install. I followed the instructions for installation but unfortunately my problem was still not solved. It was even worse... I now have very slow disk access with webinterface and direct access from file explorer. When i try another tool (treesize professional) i have the impression that the connection seemed to be unstable. I think it is continiously loosig its connection. Also, the webinterface says that the drive is 3 minutes active while 7 minutes are passed...

2) Reset to factory, wipe disk
Then Philips told me to reset to factory which will also wipe the disk. But when i do this, network settings are gone and admin password is reset (reset seems to be working) but de data is still on disk. Problem still exists.

3) Format disk
Then Philips told me to format the disk but there is no option to do this and when i told them they finally told me that the disk is damaged and that i have to throw it away.


I can write, delete, update files on disk, so IMHO the drive is not damaged. Any suggestions on what could cause this problems? Any suggestions on how to format the disk (Windows7)

thx.

[fvdw]

your disk is fine, the problem is that the Linux format used to format the disks (ext3) is limited with the number of files or directories you can store. It is determined by the number of "inodes". This number can be set when formatting the disk.
If Philips has used the default settings then for a 500 GB diks the max number of files will be around 56 million files

edit 4 sept 23:00h
Well my memory was wrong, Philips did not use the default number when formatting the , I checked the number of inodes on my spare spd8020 that has still the original 500 GB disk in it, the number if inodes is 475904 for the data partition which means the max number of files+directories you can store is this number.


Probably you have a lot of small files stored on the disk and as result have reached the max file number. Then despite there is still space no new files can be created because all blocks are used. In fact the problem is that small files do not use a full block some many blocks are partly full but cannot be used anymore for new files. This max number of files (inodes) cannot be increased without reformatting the drive. Needles to say that all data will be lost when you format the drive.
The fact that the drive is slow is probably because it has to search for free blocks when storing a file, as there are only a few left it takes a while to find them.
What you could do is put files that you don't use to often in zip archive and store the zip file instead of the individual files.

Formatting this disk cannot be done under windows, but it can be done under linux. It can even be done on the spd8020 itself as that runs Linux. There is no need to format the whole disk only the partition containing your files (sda6) could be formatted. But some Linux knowledge will be necessary to do it.

ps2 why still use the Philips firmware...it is very limited

[fvdw]

Well my memory was wrong, Philips did not use the default number, I checked the number of inodes on my spare spd8020 that has still the original 500 GB disk in it, the number if inodes is 475904 for the data partition which means the max number of files+directories you can store on this drive will be this number.

[pgoovaerts]

Hi fvdw,

Thanks for all the info. The extra features of your changed firmware version are very interesting. Some questions though:
1) How can i see the number of inodes ?
2) Can i just install the fvdw-sl-8.x (have not the correct full name now) version on the current 'Philips' firmware?
(the description on the versions topic says "This upgrade can be done on the spd8020 from any previous version of the fvdw firmware."

[fvdw]

Number of inodes, for that you need to connect with the a program like Putty to the ssh server running on the NAS.
That will give you a Linux command shell in which you can give commands to the system. Be are that when you do that you are logged in as superuser "root" meaning you can do everything including commands that can be destructive so be carefully when doing that.

A command that will list the number of Inodes of the data partition of your spd8020 will be this

Code: Select all

tune2fs -l /dev/sda6 | grep Inode


On the spd8020 installing of the fvdw-sl-8.x can be done from any previous version including the old Philips firmware by using the web interface firmware upgrade menu.

yep you can install as said from any version

[pgoovaerts]

I installed PuTTY on my system. I will be very carefully with it because i know it could destroy anything on the connected system. It's been setup by the guy's who installed the BladeCenter at our office en i use it once in a while to copy files.

At the moment my drive has the default userid/password. I can log on with it to the webconsole. But i cannot log on with it using PuTTY, not with the user 'root'... Any idea what the defaults could be?


thx.

[fvdw]

for putty you need to use as username: "root" (without the quotes) and as password: "giveit2me" (also without the quotes.
The password is only valid if you didn't change it. The ssh password (Putty uses ssh connection) you can change in the web interface, its not by default the same as used for the web interface itself.

[pgoovaerts]

Thx again for the info. I can login as a root now. I have no option for the ssh password, i guess it is not displayed in the 'standard web interface' of my SPD8020?

anyway, i can start Putty now but it seems i also need the efsprogs toolkit. I have downloaded it already but IMHO it has to be installed on a linux machine, mine is a Windows7...

[fvdw]

if you still use the old philips fir,ware then indeed you can not set the ssh password. You need to install the fvdw-sl firmware ;) (thought you already had done that)

what do you want to do with the toolkit you mentioned ?

[Trois14]

Hello all !
I encountered the same problem as "pgoovaerts" : disk full error message with more than 190 Gb free space.
But in my case, I received no answer from Philips support !
But since they completely missed the point, they wouldn't have been of any help anyway!
Thanks "fvdw" for your explanations (inodes set to 475904 by Philips...)
I personally had 462473 files and 13419 folders (total : 475892) but I know now where the problem is.

BUT...

why is my SPD8020 always "working" since then ? : activity led always blinking (even if NAS disconnected from network!), HDD running (I can ear the noise) and NAS very slow when reading or even erasing files...
Could the integrated OS (Philips Firmware 1.2.9.47 - sorry I haven't tryed your personnal free firmware yet) do an automatic defrag or something like that ?
But it last for days now !
What can I do ? (I'm not at ease with Linux...)
Thanks for your helpful ideas !