I’ve been running an Iomega IX4 in my home vSphere lab 24×7 for the past two years and have found it to be a nice reliable NAS device.  Though like with anything regular maintenance is required whether this be removing the dust or fluff from the fan at the back or keeping the firmware up-to-date.  The latter being the topic of this blog post.

The Iomega IX2 or IX4 NAS has two parts to it than can have firmware revisions applying to it.  The first is the most obvious and is for the actual IX4 unit itself.    You can check to see the current firmware revision of your IX2 or IX4 by clicking on the Dashboard tab of the IX’s web based management interface, see below. 

UPDATE THE IX DEVICE FIRMWARE

To check to see if your IX NAS device is running the latest firmware version you have a couple of options. Either visit the ‘Support’ section of the Iomega web site here and select your model of Iomega NAS device or click on the ‘Settings’ tab and then on the ‘Update’ icon (below).

After clicking on the ‘Update’ icon you’ll be presented with a screen that shows the current firmware revision and a link to the ‘Iomega Software Update Web Site’.  By clicking this link you’ll be taken through to the Iomega site where you can then navigate to the ‘Support’ section and download any required firmware revision.

The following is a list of the recent firmware updates available along with a description of the main enhancements and fixes for each.

Version 2.1.38 (ix4-200d)
* Improves read-write speeds to NTFS-formatted external USB drives
* Allows writes to HFS-formatted external USB drives
* Fixes issue with device-to-device replication
* Resolves issues with iSCSI, including fixing a bug with capacity reporting and problems caused by improper dismount of shares
* Modifies default drive spin down behavior
* Provides capability to update local hard disk drive
Version 2.1.38 (ix2-200)
* Improves manufacturing process – This update only affects how the ix2-200 devices are manufactured, and has no new functionality
Version 2.1.35.19973
* Improves read-write speeds to NTFS-formatted external USB drives
* Allows writes to HFS-formatted external USB drives
* Fixes issue with device-to-device replication
* Resolves issues with iSCSI, including fixing a bug with capacity reporting and resolving problems caused by improper dismount of shares
* Modifies default drive spin down behavior
Version 2.1.30.8298
-Improved folder permissions, including AFP
-Fixed iSCSI segment length
-Improved Video Surveillance integration
-Fixed minor security issue with external USB devices
-Improved Active Directory integration
-Improved content indexing performance
-Fixed an issue with RAID arrays
-Improved performance when discovering multiple devices on network
-Restricts thumbnails to files less than 15 megapixels

Generally firmware revisions to the device itself isn’t data destructive meaning that you can upgrade your IX device without fear of losing any data to it.  That said, it is always a good idea to make a copy of your data to another device or similar before applying any firmware update – just in case…

Once you’ve download the firmware file from the Iomega site you are then all set to update it to the Iomega IX device.  To do this simply check/tick the ‘Copy Update File’ box, click the ‘Browse’ button and select the firmware file you just downloaded and click the ‘Next’ button to start updating the firmware.

UPDATE THE DISK FIRMWARE

The second part to upgrading the firmware on your Iomega is no doubt the most overlooked,  the firmware of the hard disks.  It pays to keep the firmware of your hard disks updated semi-regularly especially if your IX device shows symptoms such as hard disks powering down frequently or loud clicking noises on a new device.

But before we go on any further and even start thinking about updating the firmware of the hard disks – BACK UP YOUR IOMEGA DEVICE FIRST!!!  Updating the firmware on the hard disks whether it be in an Iomega or any other device can be a risky business. 

To check out what revision of firmware your hard disks are running click on the ‘Settings’ tab and then the ‘Disks’ icon (below).

From this view of the disks you can see the four disks of model ST31000520AS (Seagate Barracuda LP SATA Disk) which are running the CC32 firmware revision.  From the release notes for the Iomega IX disk upgrade the latest (at the time of writing this post) firmware revision is CC38.  So as you can see the disks in my IX4 are rather out of date, also you’ll notice that I have a failed disk in the device which I plan to swap out shortly under warrantee.

To download the latest drive firmware access the link below to the Iomega support site:

https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/24661/kw/Firmware%20Update

The steps below are how to upgrade the drives of your Iomega IX though I would recommend always checking the Iomega site first just in case the procedure changes:

Power off your ix2-200 or ix4-200d

Unplug any external USB devices you may have plugged into your ix2-200 or ix4-200d

Insert the updated USB flash drive into a USB port on your ix2-200 or ix4-200d

Press and hold the reset button on the rear panel of the unit

Power on your ix2-200 or x4-200d

Continue holding the reset button while powering on the device

• After about 1 minute, a picture of a USB flash drive will show on the front LCD display. At this point release the reset button.

• The ix2-200 or ix4-200d unit will now execute the utility loaded on the flash drive to update the drives in the system. After all drives are updated the unit will automatically shut-down. This should take less than 1 additional minute.

After your ix2-200 or ix4-200d powers off, remove the USB flash drive

Power up your ix2-200 or ix4-200d

• If your device drives are 500GB (2TB total capacity), verify that the drives are updated to version CC37 by logging in to the ix2-200 or ix4-200d and checking under Settings -> Disks
• If your device drives are 1TB or 2TB drives (4TB or 8TB total capacity), verify that the drives are updated to version CC38 by logging in to the ix2-200 or ix4-200d and checking under Settings -> Disks

Now, when you go back into the ‘Settings’ –> ‘Disks’ tab you should see that the disks firmware revisions have increased from CC32 to CC38.  As mentioned earlier in this post there is a possibility that the updating of the firmware of the drives is data destructive so double check that your data is still intact else restore it from your backup.  You did take a back right?

So there we have it, updating the firmware of both your Iomega IX device and it’s disks is a straight forward process and well worth keeping on top of. 

Hey TechHeads!  Here’s an important vSphere issue that may potentially impact the management of your production or lab vSphere environment.  The ‘issue’ is caused by a recent Microsoft .NET patch update which can cause your pre-Update 1 vSphere Client to give the error message: “ Error parsing the server "<servername>" "clients.xml" file.  The type initializer for VirtualInfrastructure.Utils.HttpWebRequestProxy’ threw an exception. “

VMware have released a Knowledge Base article which describes the error in a little more detail and provides the resolution of….  Update your vSphere Client.  So to head this error off you may want to consider upgrading your vSphere Client, if your haven’t already done so.