RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"

Aspirant

Dec 18, 2019

Hi michaelkenward,

I connect the USB drive to the router's USB port and attempt to connect and use it with ReadyShare software. The results are varied as I described. I have used a number of drives and this is my second Netgear router.

I have repurposed several of the drives and I returned the brand new WD drive so I could get a refund. I don't want to buy another drive just to have it fail or get trashed if that is what happened to my most recent attempt.

I gave up on this out of frustration and uninstalled ReadyShare from my Win10 PC.

I have a 55GB USB drive that I can troubleshoot with and I can reinstall ReadySHARE Vault but I need to feel confident that I can buy any decent 1TB USB drive and have it work.

It's not rocket science, it's a USB port and drive ('U' stands for Universal) and the software is ReadySHARE. I also have a "ReadySHARE" command on the RAX80 router under both Basic and Advanced which I should be able to use for the ReadySHARE Vault if I reinstall that software on one of my PC's to test I prefer to start with my main PC which is connected to the RAX80 port directly via RJ45.

I attached a screenshot of the ReadySHARE command from my RAX80 just for information purposes at this point.

I cannot be the only person having these issues. Your thoughts?

BiigRich
Aspirant
Dec 18, 2019
Hello again michaelkenward,

I'm sorry if I was misleading. I had not yet attached the 55GB drive. I just wanted to show the current configuration. I said that I have a 55GB drive available if someone wanted to work with me.

I have just attached the drive (see new screenshot attached). The drive shows up as drive letter 'T' and has been assigned a name of \\ReadySHARE\T_Drive . I have not yet installed the ReadySHARE Vault software.

If I/we get this working I will need to buy a much larger drive (1TB just for the constantly changing data) to do my backups.I do regular FULL backups offline and monthly. I only want the network drive to store things change all the time while using a PC. I would also like to direct my security cameras to store on it but I wouldn't be upset if that didn't work. It should but I don't know if I could actually "expect" it to.

I didn't want to buy a drive until I felt as though I wouldn't just be wasting my money. I'm not happy that the list of so called "tested drives" is so short and it is near impossible to find an exact model doing a search engine search on the Internet. The search tends to ignore most of the exact model information and assume you just want a "1TB USB drive" because that is what was 'basically' searched for. The other issue is that even if I find a drive that is on the tested list, I cannot get it for a good price unless I simply luck out. I mentioned when I opened this issue that I am not happy with the way Netgear "words" the list. They simply list as "Reported to work". Not a very confidence inspiring message. It should say tested and supported by Netgear.

I believe the latest failure I experienced may have something to do with the way WD Passport drives present themselves. I believe they are autoencrypted. I can and will buy a NON encrypted drive if I feel comfortable that a normal drive will work for my environment.
- BiigRich
  Aspirant
  Dec 18, 2019
  Oh, one more thing. I did not, nor do I intend to partition the drive. I need to have a lot of folders on it though.
  - BiigRich
    Aspirant
    Dec 18, 2019
    FWIW, I installed ReadySHARE Vault again. As before, I see the 55GB drive from the ReadySHARE commnd on the router assign the sharename "\\ReadySHARE\T_Drive" and the folder of "root" folder "T:\".
    
    When I run ReadySHARE Vault from the PC it says "Detecting ReadySHARE Drive" and then times out saying "No ReadySHARE device detected".
    
    See screenshot of ReadySHARE trying to detect the drive and failure to detect the drive.

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RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"