Tech-Life in Pink

Linksys NAS 200 Tech Support – Part 2

Posted on June 26, 2009 Updated on June 26, 2009

[Part 1 of this topic HERE.]

I took out and checked the hard disk drives and it turns out I actually had two 1000 GB (1 TB) hard disk drives put in the Linksys Network Storage System NAS 200. So I actually was supposed to have a total of 2 TB capacity (or technically, 2 x 931 GB = 1862 GB). Got even worse since only 858 GB was showing, eh?

I tried the Separate Disks drive configuration and it showed the correct capacity. The problem was when I had it configured as JBOD/LVM. I tried installing two, then just one. But still the same.

When I contacted chat support on Day 2, the agent tried to suggest solutions and walked me through them, but they didn’t work. I wasted about 40 minutes with him for this. Then I had to cut our conversation short since I had to do something else at that time.

In the end, that afternoon I found out the solution on my own. I simply needed to flash the NAS 200 with the latest firmware which is Version 3.4R75. In the release notes, this is specifically what I needed:

11. Fix the issue that the drive size can not be recognized correctly when hard drive size over 500GB under JBOD/LVM configuration.

The tech support agents should have asked me the question what firmware version did the NAS 200 have but they didn’t! Problem would have been solved sooner if they had. Note to self: Check for latest firmware version of equipment always!

If you ever encounter a problem with equipment not showing proper capacity or anything similar whatsoever, check for the latest firmware always on the product website. Or if they don’t have updated firmware, third-party sites might have (use Google to search for these).