ReadyNAS multiple disk faluire

I have a ReadyNAS Pro Business Edition with six Seagate ST32000542AS 2T drives, set up in RAID Level 5.  About a month ago, I discovered that disk 1 was reported as failed, and the ReadyNAS genereate the message "Detected increasing command timeouts [65537] on disk 1 ... This often indicates an impdneing failure. ...".  I rebooted and the ReadyNAS resynched, and no longer reported disk 1 as a problem.  Then ten days ago, I got the same message for disk 6.  I again rebooted, the ReadyNAS resynched and no longer reported disk 6 as a problem.

And now, I have the same problem reported on disk 2.  It is currently resynching.  

It seems strange to me to get reported failures on different disks.  Each disk was placed in service in September 2010, and the ReadyNAS is used in my nome.  The disks still have almost a year of warranty left.

I am wondering if this is just a case of the disks reaching the end of their lives, or is the ReadyNAS experiencing problems itself?

Thank you.
ShrimperEdAsked:
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DavidConnect With a Mentor PresidentCommented:
Those disks are totally unacceptable for RAID5 use.  They are cheap desktop drives and will lock up for 30+ seconds when trying to do bad block recovery.  If you are going to do RAID5, then you need to get ENTERPRISE class drives ... period.

If you insist having these drives then the only thing you can do is move to a RAID10 config.  This will be more tolerant of error timeouts because all your data will be on two disks at once, so the firmware will grab the data it needs from the mirror or a disk that is timing out, are likelihood that it will fail a disk is much lower.

S.M.A.R.T. WILL show all disks are fine .. because the disks ARE OK.   It is an issue of suitability for use, and operational characteristics, not that the disks are bad.
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Gajendra RathodSr. System AdministratorCommented:
Please update the firmware of RAID controller card and hard disk.

Please take the full backup before firmware update.
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Chris MillardCommented:
I've had similar experiences with a QNAP NAS device with disks in a RAID 5 - The disks are only 3 or 4 months old at the moment. I had one showing as failed - I ran a full surface scan and it came back online without any further problem. The same then occurred on another drive - again I ran a surface scan and it came back online.

I've had no further problems since, and the S.M.A.R.T. all shows fine on these drives.

I wouldn't necessarily think that it means the drives are about to fail, but I would (as mentioned above) ensure that you have the most up to date firmware, and make sure that the NAS box is configured to alert you if anything happens.

And I guess, keeping a spare drive to hand wouldn't be a bad thing either!

One other thing - don't rely on your NAS unit being your only backup of data!
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