Many of our customers use <a href="http://iomega.com/nas/network-attached-storage.html">Iomega Network Attached Storage </a>(NAS) units as backup-to-disk targets. We have a customer who uses an <a href="http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/network-storage-desktop/storcenter-network-storage-solution/network-hard-drive-ix4-200d-cloud/">Iomega ix4-200d </a>to store backups of their vSphere environment made using vRanger Pro.  The ix4-200d is a popular model because it contains four drives that can be configured to provide RAID 5 or RAID 10 protection, and is available in raw capacities of 4TB, 8TB and 12TB.

Our customer recently experienced a drive failure in a NAS unit that had been in production for more than a year. Fortunately, the drives were configured with RAID 5 and there was no data loss.

When opening a support case with Iomega we were told that the unit was no longer under warranty – which was surprising since it comes with a 36-month warranty and was only 17 months old. We learned that the unit had never been registered on Iomega’s web site, which is a requirement for activating warranty support. Fortunately the customer was able to locate the original invoice as proof of purchase and complete the online warranty registration.

Once warranty support was confirmed, we asked Iomega support to send a replacement for the failed drive. They first had us upload a dump file from the unit, and then instructed us to upgrade the firmware both in the unit itself and on the individual drives. The firmware upgrades restored the failed drive to working order and the drive was re-added to the RAID group, making a replacement drive unnecessary.

Some lessons learned from this experience:
– Make sure to register your NAS on Iomega’s web site. Warranty coverage is not available
– If you own an Iomega NAS unit, it would be a good idea to proactively upgrade the firmware. You might avoid drive failures of the type our customer experienced

Links to the firmware downloads and installation instructions for the Iomega ix4-200d can be found <a href="https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22315">here</a> and <a href="https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/24661/related/1">here</a>.

Unfortunately in our customer's case the drive failed again while being added back to the RAID group and will  need to be replaced.