Last Sunday, I received a concerning email from my Synology account indicating a lost DDNS service on my DS918+. The blinking status LED and unresponsive DSM suggested hardware issues.
To settle this issue, I disassembled the unit, removed the hard drives and memory sticks, and thoroughly cleaned the main board. Despite meticulous reassembly, including the cooling fans, the problem persisted, confirming my suspicion of a hardware issue.
After experiencing issues, I searched Google for potential solutions. I followed these steps: first, I removed all four original disks to preserve data and inserted a spare disk. This allowed me to connect to DSM via the “Find my Synology” app. However, the app indicated that the Disk Station’s configuration was lost and needed a DSM system reinstall. After reinstalling, I restored the configuration from the Synology website. But the disk management app reported that Volume 1 had crashed, leaving all folders inaccessible. Concerned about my data, I raised a ticket with Synology for help.
Over the next two days, I searched extensively for useful information, but couldn’t find a similar case. Eventually, I discovered that two SSDs had been removed without being restored. This seemed to be the root cause of Volume 1’s crash.
I reinserted the SSDs and restarted the Disk Station, which resolved the issue. Volume 1 returned to a healthy status, and all my folders and data were accessible again. The last step was to restore all packages and configuration from the HyperBackup copy on my unRAID server, which served as a safeguard against data loss. The entire process took about two days to get everything back to normal.
From this case, I’ve learned the following lessons:
- Never use the original disk to attempt a solution.
- Use the “Find my Synology” app within the same Local Area Network (LAN) instead of going through a Virtual LAN (VLAN).
- Always perform a separate data backup, and don’t merely rely on the RAID disk backup.