NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
RAX80 does not recognize USB drive
I recently purchased an RAX80 and am trying to use it for Time Machine. I attached a GUID-partition-map, Mac OS extended-formatted portable USB drive, and while the device is clearly plugged in (pow...
kbroderick wrote:
Bummer that a different USB drive from the same, well-known manufacture isn't compatible, but c'est la vie, I guess.
Drive compatibility for ReadySHARE seems to be more like witchcraft than engineering. Earlier reports put 4 TB upper limit for compatibility. There was one report of 6 TB but I haven't seen it replicated.
I have a 4 TB WD Elements drive connected. It has its own power supply, so isn't a drain on the USB ports, which seems to be one issue.
The first thing to check is any strange partitioning on the USB drive. This is an absolute no no for ReadySHARE.
The bottom line is that ReadySHARE isn't something to rely on. A proper NAS is much better.
kbroderick wrote:
I can't find any troubleshooting info or USB-related logs. Is there further info on this somewhere? Anyone have any suggestions?
And this USB drive is?
Start here:
ReadySHARE USB Drives Compatibility List | Answer | NETGEAR Support
I assume that you read the bit in the manual about USB support.
If you visit the support pages:
Support | NETGEAR
you can feed in your model number and find the documentation for your hardware.
kbroderick wrote:
I attached a GUID-partition-map, Mac OS extended-formatted portable USB drive, and while the device is clearly plugged in (power light on drive is on), the router still indicates "No USB drive".
ReadySHARE does not work with partitioned drives. For grown up storage, use proper Ethernet network attached storage (NAS).
kbroderick wrote:
I can't find any troubleshooting info or USB-related logs. Is there further info on this somewhere? Anyone have any suggestions?
This place is full of questions and answers about USB storage. Just search on appropriate terms.
Yes, I've read the manual (from http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RAX80/RAX80_UM_EN.pdf). I followed the instructions on p. 121, albeit attached to the Mac and not the router, as that's got to be a documentation error given that Disk Utility can't see a remote disk, and formatted the disk with a GUID partition map and MacOS Extended (Journaled) format, as per the documentation (and standard practice for a Time Machine disk).
The disk in question is a Seagate 4TB USB 3.0 portable drive, model STEA4000409. While that specific model does not appear on the list, several Seagate drives do, including at least one portable drive.
I've tried searching "USB drive not recognized", "RAX80 does not see USB drive", "USB drive not seen" and several variations of those searches. Most of the results I'm getting are about drives that are recognized and appear in the admin UI, but that are then not available for connections or not seen from ReadyVault. The only similar report I can find is for an R9000, where the drive isn't recognized for over 2 hours, then appears (apparently after fsck finishes running—https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/Seagate-USB-5-TB-drive-recognized-after-2-hrs-45-mins/m-p/1443139). I will admit that I haven't yet tried waiting three hours, so I'll plan on plugging the drive in at some point today and leaving it there for a day or two to see if it suddenly appears. If you can suggest an alternate search phrase or have come across any similar issue reports, I'd appreciate the links.
Thanks,
Kevin
Well, apparently the RAX80 is not compatible with the Seagate 1TEAPF-500 (part number on drive) / STEA4000409 (as identified on purchase order). Even after leaving it plugged in overnight, the RAX80 never indicated that it has a USB storage device attached.
I tried plugging in a different Segate portable USB drive, this one a 2TB STGX2000400, and the system recognizes the drive right away. Bummer that a different USB drive from the same, well-known manufacture isn't compatible, but c'est la vie, I guess.
I'm now running into TIme Machine issues, but that's a different kettle of fish and I've got a fair bit of troubleshooting left to do.
kbroderick wrote:
Bummer that a different USB drive from the same, well-known manufacture isn't compatible, but c'est la vie, I guess.
Drive compatibility for ReadySHARE seems to be more like witchcraft than engineering. Earlier reports put 4 TB upper limit for compatibility. There was one report of 6 TB but I haven't seen it replicated.
I have a 4 TB WD Elements drive connected. It has its own power supply, so isn't a drain on the USB ports, which seems to be one issue.
The first thing to check is any strange partitioning on the USB drive. This is an absolute no no for ReadySHARE.
The bottom line is that ReadySHARE isn't something to rely on. A proper NAS is much better.
So after some intermittent (and unsuccessful) attempts to get the 2TB drive to actually work with Time Machine, the router ended up hanging and I had to restart it. In the process, or perhaps because of the restart, the filesystem on the drive got damaged to the point of fsck (via Disk Utility) failing on the Mac:
Performing fsck_hfs -fy -x /dev/rdisk2s2
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Invalid node structure
The volume could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 8.
Restoring the original state found as unmounted.
File system verify or repair failed. : (-69845)....so I'm giving up. If there's any significant risk of the filesystem getting corrupted, there's not much point in trusting it as a backup device. I'm going to reformat the drive and go back to direct attachment to the computer.